The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About
the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas
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PREFACE:

“The Forsyte Saga” was the title originally
destined for that part of it which is called “The
Man of Property”; and to adopt it for the collected
chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged the Forsytean
tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga
might be objected to on the ground that it connotes
the heroic and that there is little heroism in these
pages. But it is used with a suitable irony;
and, after all, this long tale, though it may deal
with folk in frock coats, furbelows, and a gilt-edged
period, is not devoid of the essential heat of conflict.
Discounting for the gigantic stature and blood-thirstiness
of old days, as they have come down to us in fairy-tale
and legend, the folk of the old Sagas were Forsytes,
assuredly, in their possessive instincts, and as little
proof against the inroads of beauty and passion as
Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon. And if
heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle
out from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to
a Forsyte of the Victorian era, we may be sure that
tribal instinct was even then the prime force, and
that “family” and the sense of home and
property counted as they do to this day, for all the
recent efforts to “talk them out.”

So many people have written and claimed that their
families were the originals of the Forsytes that one
has been almost encouraged to believe in the typicality
of an imagined species. Manners change and modes
evolve, and “Timothy’s on the Bayswater
Road” becomes a nest of the unbelievable in
all except essentials; we shall not look upon its like
again, nor perhaps on such a one as James or Old Jolyon.
And yet the figures of Insurance Societies and the
utterances of Judges reassure us daily that our earthly
paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild
raiders, Beauty and Passion, come stealing in, filching
security from beneath our noses. As surely as
a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the essential
Soames in human nature ever rise up uneasily against
the dissolution which hovers round the folds of ownership.

“Let the dead Past bury its dead” would
be a better saying if the Past ever died. The
persistence of the Past is one of those tragi-comic
blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure
on to the stage to mouth its claim to a perfect novelty.

But no Age is so new as that! Human Nature,
under its changing pretensions and clothes, is and
ever will be very much of a Forsyte, and might, after
all, be a much worse animal.

Looking back on the Victorian era, whose ripeness,
decline, and ‘fall-of’ is in some sort
pictured in “The Forsyte Saga,” we see
now that we have but jumped out of a frying-pan into
a fire. It would be difficult to substantiate
a claim that the case of England was better in 1913
than it was in 1886, when the Forsytes assembled at
Old Jolyon’s to celebrate the engagement of
June to Philip Bosinney. And in 1920, when again

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the clan gathered to bless the marriage of Fleur with
Michael Mont, the state of England is as surely too
molten and bankrupt as in the eighties it was too
congealed and low-percented. If these chronicles
had been a really scientific study of transition one
would have dwelt probably on such factors as the invention
of bicycle, motor-car, and flying-machine; the arrival
of a cheap Press; the decline of country life and increase
of the towns; the birth of the Cinema. Men are,
in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions;
they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions
those inventions create.

But this long tale is no scientific study of a period;
it is rather an intimate incarnation of the disturbance
that Beauty effects in the lives of men.

The figure of Irene, never, as the reader may possibly
have observed, present, except through the senses
of other characters, is a concretion of disturbing
Beauty impinging on a possessive world.

One has noticed that readers, as they wade on through
the salt waters of the Saga, are inclined more and
more to pity Soames, and to think that in doing so
they are in revolt against the mood of his creator.
Far from it! He, too, pities Soames, the tragedy
of whose life is the very simple, uncontrollable tragedy
of being unlovable, without quite a thick enough skin
to be thoroughly unconscious of the fact. Not
even Fleur loves Soames as he feels he ought to be
loved. But in pitying Soames, readers incline,
perhaps, to animus against Irene: After all, they
think, he wasn’t a bad fellow, it wasn’t
his fault; she ought to have forgiven him, and so
on!

And, taking sides, they lose perception of the simple
truth, which underlies the whole story, that where
sex attraction is utterly and definitely lacking in
one partner to a union, no amount of pity, or reason,
or duty, or what not, can overcome a repulsion implicit
in Nature. Whether it ought to, or no, is beside
the point; because in fact it never does. And
where Irene seems hard and cruel, as in the Bois de
Boulogne, or the Goupenor Gallery, she is but wisely
realistic—­knowing that the least concession
is the inch which precedes the impossible, the repulsive
ell.

A criticism one might pass on the last phase of the
Saga is the complaint that Irene and Jolyon those
rebels against property—­claim spiritual
property in their son Jon. But it would be hypercriticism,
as the tale is told. No father and mother could
have let the boy marry Fleur without knowledge of
the facts; and the facts determine Jon, not the persuasion
of his parents. Moreover, Jolyon’s persuasion
is not on his own account, but on Irene’s, and
Irene’s persuasion becomes a reiterated:
“Don’t think of me, think of yourself!”
That Jon, knowing the facts, can realise his mother’s
feelings, will hardly with justice be held proof that
she is, after all, a Forsyte.

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But though the impingement of Beauty and the claims
of Freedom on a possessive world are the main prepossessions
of the Forsyte Saga, it cannot be absolved from the
charge of embalming the upper-middle class. As
the old Egyptians placed around their mummies the necessaries
of a future existence, so I have endeavoured to lay
beside the, figures of Aunts Ann and Juley and Hester,
of Timothy and Swithin, of Old Jolyon and James, and
of their sons, that which shall guarantee them a little
life here-after, a little balm in the hurried Gilead
of a dissolving “Progress.”

If the upper-middle class, with other classes, is
destined to “move on” into amorphism,
here, pickled in these pages, it lies under glass for
strollers in the wide and ill-arranged museum of Letters.
Here it rests, preserved in its own juice: The
Sense of Property. 1922.

THE MAN OF PROPERTY

by Johngalsworthy

“........ You will answer
The slaves are ours .....”

—­Merchant of Venice.

TO EDWARD GARNETT

PART I

CHAPTER I

‘At home’ at old Jolyon’s

Those privileged to be present at a family festival
of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive
sight—­an upper middle-class family in full
plumage. But whosoever of these favoured persons
has possessed the gift of psychological analysis (a
talent without monetary value and properly ignored
by the Forsytes), has witnessed a spectacle, not only
delightful in itself, but illustrative of an obscure
human problem. In plainer words, he has gleaned
from a gathering of this family—­no branch
of which had a liking for the other, between no three
members of whom existed anything worthy of the name
of sympathy—­evidence of that mysterious
concrete tenacity which renders a family so formidable
a unit of society, so clear a reproduction of society
in miniature. He has been admitted to a vision
of the dim roads of social progress, has understood
something of patriarchal life, of the swarmings of
savage hordes, of the rise and fall of nations.
He is like one who, having watched a tree grow from
its planting—­a paragon of tenacity, insulation,
and success, amidst the deaths of a hundred other
plants less fibrous, sappy, and persistent—­one
day will see it flourishing with bland, full foliage,
in an almost repugnant prosperity, at the summit of
its efflorescence.

On June 15, eighteen eighty-six, about four of the
afternoon, the observer who chanced to be present
at the house of old Jolyon Forsyte in Stanhope Gate,
might have seen the highest efflorescence of the Forsytes.

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This was the occasion of an ‘at home’
to celebrate the engagement of Miss June Forsyte,
old Jolyon’s granddaughter, to Mr. Philip Bosinney.
In the bravery of light gloves, buff waistcoats,
feathers and frocks, the family were present, even
Aunt Ann, who now but seldom left the corner of her
brother Timothy’s green drawing-room, where,
under the aegis of a plume of dyed pampas grass in
a light blue vase, she sat all day reading and knitting,
surrounded by the effigies of three generations of
Forsytes. Even Aunt Ann was there; her inflexible
back, and the dignity of her calm old face personifying
the rigid possessiveness of the family idea.

When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the
Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte died—­but
no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death
being contrary to their principles, they took precautions
against it, the instinctive precautions of highly
vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their
property.

About the Forsytes mingling that day with the crowd
of other guests, there was a more than ordinarily
groomed look, an alert, inquisitive assurance, a brilliant
respectability, as though they were attired in defiance
of something. The habitual sniff on the face
of Soames Forsyte had spread through their ranks;
they were on their guard.

The subconscious offensiveness of their attitude has
constituted old Jolyon’s ‘home’
the psychological moment of the family history, made
it the prelude of their drama.

The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually,
but as a family; this resentment expressed itself
in an added perfection of raiment, an exuberance of
family cordiality, an exaggeration of family importance,
and—­the sniff. Danger—­so
indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality
of any society, group, or individual—­was
what the Forsytes scented; the premonition of danger
put a burnish on their armour. For the first
time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct
of being in contact, with some strange and unsafe thing.

Over against the piano a man of bulk and stature was
wearing two waistcoats on his wide chest, two waistcoats
and a ruby pin, instead of the single satin waistcoat
and diamond pin of more usual occasions, and his shaven,
square, old face, the colour of pale leather, with
pale eyes, had its most dignified look, above his
satin stock. This was Swithin Forsyte.
Close to the window, where he could get more than
his fair share of fresh air, the other twin, James—­the
fat and the lean of it, old Jolyon called these brothers—­like
the bulky Swithin, over six feet in height, but very
lean, as though destined from his birth to strike a
balance and maintain an average, brooded over the scene
with his permanent stoop; his grey eyes had an air
of fixed absorption in some secret worry, broken at
intervals by a rapid, shifting scrutiny of surrounding
facts; his cheeks, thinned by two parallel folds, and

Page 5

a long, clean-shaven upper lip, were framed within
Dundreary whiskers. In his hands he turned and
turned a piece of china. Not far off, listening
to a lady in brown, his only son Soames, pale and
well-shaved, dark-haired, rather bald, had poked his
chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that aforesaid
appearance of ‘sniff,’ as though despising
an egg which he knew he could not digest. Behind
him his cousin, the tall George, son of the fifth
Forsyte, Roger, had a Quilpish look on his fleshy face,
pondering one of his sardonic jests. Something
inherent to the occasion had affected them all.

Seated in a row close to one another were three ladies—­Aunts
Ann, Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and Juley (short
for Julia), who not in first youth had so far forgotten
herself as to marry Septimus Small, a man of poor
constitution. She had survived him for many years.
With her elder and younger sister she lived now in
the house of Timothy, her sixth and youngest brother,
on the Bayswater Road. Each of these ladies held
fans in their hands, and each with some touch of colour,
some emphatic feather or brooch, testified to the
solemnity of the opportunity.

In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as
became a host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon
himself. Eighty years of age, with his fine,
white hair, his dome-like forehead, his little, dark
grey eyes, and an immense white moustache, which drooped
and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had
a patriarchal look, and in spite of lean cheeks and
hollows at his temples, seemed master of perennial
youth. He held himself extremely upright, and
his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of their clear
shining. Thus he gave an impression of superiority
to the doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having
had his own way for innumerable years, he had earned
a prescriptive right to it. It would never have
occurred to old Jolyon that it was necessary to wear
a look of doubt or of defiance.

Between him and the four other brothers who were present,
James, Swithin, Nicholas, and Roger, there was much
difference, much similarity. In turn, each of
these four brothers was very different from the other,
yet they, too, were alike.

Through the varying features and expression of those
five faces could be marked a certain steadfastness
of chin, underlying surface distinctions, marking
a racial stamp, too prehistoric to trace, too remote
and permanent to discuss—­the very hall-mark
and guarantee of the family fortunes.

Among the younger generation, in the tall, bull-like
George, in pallid strenuous Archibald, in young Nicholas
with his sweet and tentative obstinacy, in the grave
and foppishly determined Eustace, there was this same
stamp—­less meaningful perhaps, but unmistakable—­a
sign of something ineradicable in the family soul.
At one time or another during the afternoon, all these
faces, so dissimilar and so alike, had worn an expression

Page 6

of distrust, the object of which was undoubtedly the
man whose acquaintance they were thus assembled to
make. Philip Bosinney was known to be a young
man without fortune, but Forsyte girls had become engaged
to such before, and had actually married them.
It was not altogether for this reason, therefore,
that the minds of the Forsytes misgave them.
They could not have explained the origin of a misgiving
obscured by the mist of family gossip. A story
was undoubtedly told that he had paid his duty call
to Aunts Ann, Juley, and Hester, in a soft grey hat—­a
soft grey hat, not even a new one—­a dusty
thing with a shapeless crown. “So, extraordinary,
my dear—­so odd,” Aunt Hester, passing
through the little, dark hall (she was rather short-sighted),
had tried to ‘shoo’ it off a chair, taking
it for a strange, disreputable cat—­Tommy
had such disgraceful friends! She was disturbed
when it did not move.

Like an artist for ever seeking to discover the significant
trifle which embodies the whole character of a scene,
or place, or person, so those unconscious artists—­the
Forsytes had fastened by intuition on this hat; it
was their significant trifle, the detail in which was
embedded the meaning of the whole matter; for each
had asked himself: “Come, now, should I
have paid that visit in that hat?” and each had
answered “No!” and some, with more imagination
than others, had added: “It would never
have come into my head!”

George, on hearing the story, grinned. The hat
had obviously been worn as a practical joke!
He himself was a connoisseur of such. “Very
haughty!” he said, “the wild Buccaneer.”

And this mot, the ‘Buccaneer,’ was bandied
from mouth to mouth, till it became the favourite
mode of alluding to Bosinney.

Her aunts reproached June afterwards about the hat.

“We don’t think you ought to let him,
dear!” they had said.

June had answered in her imperious brisk way, like
the little embodiment of will she was: “Oh!
what does it matter? Phil never knows what he’s
got on!”

No one had credited an answer so outrageous.
A man not to know what he had on? No, no!
What indeed was this young man, who, in becoming
engaged to June, old Jolyon’s acknowledged heiress,
had done so well for himself? He was an architect,
not in itself a sufficient reason for wearing such
a hat. None of the Forsytes happened to be architects,
but one of them knew two architects who would never
have worn such a hat upon a call of ceremony in the
London season.

Dangerous—­ah, dangerous! June, of
course, had not seen this, but, though not yet nineteen,
she was notorious. Had she not said to Mrs.
Soames—­who was always so beautifully dressed—­that
feathers were vulgar? Mrs. Soames had actually
given up wearing feathers, so dreadfully downright
was dear June!

These misgivings, this disapproval, and perfectly
genuine distrust, did not prevent the Forsytes from
gathering to old Jolyon’s invitation. An
‘At Home’ at Stanhope Gate was a great
rarity; none had been held for twelve years, not indeed,
since old Mrs. Jolyon had died.

Page 7

Never had there been so full an assembly, for, mysteriously
united in spite of all their differences, they had
taken arms against a common peril. Like cattle
when a dog comes into the field, they stood head to
head and shoulder to shoulder, prepared to run upon
and trample the invader to death. They had come,
too, no doubt, to get some notion of what sort of
presents they would ultimately be expected to give;
for though the question of wedding gifts was usually
graduated in this way: ‘What are you givin’?
Nicholas is givin’ spoons!’—­so
very much depended on the bridegroom. If he
were sleek, well-brushed, prosperous-looking, it was
more necessary to give him nice things; he would expect
them. In the end each gave exactly what was
right and proper, by a species of family adjustment
arrived at as prices are arrived at on the Stock Exchange—­the
exact niceties being regulated at Timothy’s commodious,
red-brick residence in Bayswater, overlooking the Park,
where dwelt Aunts Ann, Juley, and Hester.

The uneasiness of the Forsyte family has been justified
by the simple mention of the hat. How impossible
and wrong would it have been for any family, with
the regard for appearances which should ever characterize
the great upper middle-class, to feel otherwise than
uneasy!

The author of the uneasiness stood talking to June
by the further door; his curly hair had a rumpled
appearance, as though he found what was going on around
him unusual. He had an air, too, of having a
joke all to himself. George, speaking aside
to his brother, Eustace, said:

“Looks as if he might make a bolt of it—­the
dashing Buccaneer!”

This ‘very singular-looking man,’ as Mrs.
Small afterwards called him, was of medium height
and strong build, with a pale, brown face, a dust-coloured
moustache, very prominent cheek-bones, and hollow checks.
His forehead sloped back towards the crown of his head,
and bulged out in bumps over the eyes, like foreheads
seen in the Lion-house at the Zoo. He had sherry-coloured
eyes, disconcertingly inattentive at times. Old
Jolyon’s coachman, after driving June and Bosinney
to the theatre, had remarked to the butler:

“I dunno what to make of ’im. Looks
to me for all the world like an ’alf-tame leopard.”
And every now and then a Forsyte would come up, sidle
round, and take a look at him.

June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity—­a
little bit of a thing, as somebody once said, ‘all
hair and spirit,’ with fearless blue eyes, a
firm jaw, and a bright colour, whose face and body
seemed too slender for her crown of red-gold hair.

A tall woman, with a beautiful figure, which some
member of the family had once compared to a heathen
goddess, stood looking at these two with a shadowy
smile.

Her hands, gloved in French grey, were crossed one
over the other, her grave, charming face held to one
side, and the eyes of all men near were fastened on
it. Her figure swayed, so balanced that the very
air seemed to set it moving. There was warmth,
but little colour, in her cheeks; her large, dark
eyes were soft.

Page 8

But it was at her lips—­asking a question,
giving an answer, with that shadowy smile—­that
men looked; they were sensitive lips, sensuous and
sweet, and through them seemed to come warmth and perfume
like the warmth and perfume of a flower.

The engaged couple thus scrutinized were unconscious
of this passive goddess. It was Bosinney who
first noticed her, and asked her name.

June took her lover up to the woman with the beautiful
figure.

“Irene is my greatest chum,” she said:
“Please be good friends, you two!”

At the little lady’s command they all three
smiled; and while they were smiling, Soames Forsyte,
silently appearing from behind the woman with the
beautiful figure, who was his wife, said:

“Ah! introduce me too!”

He was seldom, indeed, far from Irene’s side
at public functions, and even when separated by the
exigencies of social intercourse, could be seen following
her about with his eyes, in which were strange expressions
of watchfulness and longing.

At the window his father, James, was still scrutinizing
the marks on the piece of china.

“I wonder at Jolyon’s allowing this engagement,”
he said to Aunt Ann. “They tell me there’s
no chance of their getting married for years.
This young Bosinney” (he made the word a dactyl
in opposition to general usage of a short o) “has
got nothing. When Winifred married Dartie, I
made him bring every penny into settlement—­lucky
thing, too—­they’d ha’ had nothing
by this time!”

Aunt Ann looked up from her velvet chair. Grey
curls banded her forehead, curls that, unchanged for
decades, had extinguished in the family all sense
of time. She made no reply, for she rarely spoke,
husbanding her aged voice; but to James, uneasy of
conscience, her look was as good as an answer.

“Well,” he said, “I couldn’t
help Irene’s having no money. Soames was
in such a hurry; he got quite thin dancing attendance
on her.”

Putting the bowl pettishly down on the piano, he let
his eyes wander to the group by the door.

“It’s my opinion,” he said unexpectedly,
“that it’s just as well as it is.”

Aunt Ann did not ask him to explain this strange utterance.
She knew what he was thinking. If Irene had
no money she would not be so foolish as to do anything
wrong; for they said—­they said—­she
had been asking for a separate room; but, of course,
Soames had not....

James interrupted her reverie:

“But where,” he asked, “was Timothy?
Hadn’t he come with them?”

Through Aunt Ann’s compressed lips a tender
smile forced its way:

“No, he didn’t think it wise, with so
much of this diphtheria about; and he so liable to
take things.”

James answered:

“Well, he takes good care of himself.
I can’t afford to take the care of myself that
he does.”

Nor was it easy to say which, of admiration, envy,
or contempt, was dominant in that remark.

Page 9

Timothy, indeed, was seldom seen. The baby of
the family, a publisher by profession, he had some
years before, when business was at full tide, scented
out the stagnation which, indeed, had not yet come,
but which ultimately, as all agreed, was bound to
set in, and, selling his share in a firm engaged mainly
in the production of religious books, had invested
the quite conspicuous proceeds in three per cent. consols.
By this act he had at once assumed an isolated position,
no other Forsyte being content with less than four
per cent. for his money; and this isolation had slowly
and surely undermined a spirit perhaps better than
commonly endowed with caution. He had become
almost a myth—­a kind of incarnation of
security haunting the background of the Forsyte universe.
He had never committed the imprudence of marrying,
or encumbering himself in any way with children.

James resumed, tapping the piece of china:

“This isn’t real old Worcester.
I s’pose Jolyon’s told you something about
the young man. From all I can learn, he’s
got no business, no income, and no connection worth
speaking of; but then, I know nothing—­nobody
tells me anything.”

Aunt Ann shook her head. Over her square-chinned,
aquiline old face a trembling passed; the spidery
fingers of her hands pressed against each other and
interlaced, as though she were subtly recharging her
will.

The eldest by some years of all the Forsytes, she
held a peculiar position amongst them. Opportunists
and egotists one and all—­though not, indeed,
more so than their neighbours—­they quailed
before her incorruptible figure, and, when opportunities
were too strong, what could they do but avoid her!

Twisting his long, thin legs, James went on:

“Jolyon, he will have his own way. He’s
got no children”—­and stopped, recollecting
the continued existence of old Jolyon’s son,
young Jolyon, June’s father, who had made such
a mess of it, and done for himself by deserting his
wife and child and running away with that foreign
governess. “Well,” he resumed hastily,
“if he likes to do these things, I s’pose
he can afford to. Now, what’s he going
to give her? I s’pose he’ll give
her a thousand a year; he’s got nobody else to
leave his money to.”

He stretched out his hand to meet that of a dapper,
clean-shaven man, with hardly a hair on his head,
a long, broken nose, full lips, and cold grey eyes
under rectangular brows.

“Well, Nick,” he muttered, “how
are you?”

Nicholas Forsyte, with his bird-like rapidity and
the look of a preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had
made a large fortune, quite legitimately, out of the
companies of which he was a director), placed within
that cold palm the tips of his still colder fingers
and hastily withdrew them.

“I’m bad,” he said, pouting—­“been
bad all the week; don’t sleep at night.
The doctor can’t tell why. He’s
a clever fellow, or I shouldn’t have him, but
I get nothing out of him but bills.”

Page 10

“Doctors!” said James, coming down sharp
on his words: “I’ve had all the doctors
in London for one or another of us. There’s
no satisfaction to be got out of them; they’ll
tell you anything. There’s Swithin, now.
What good have they done him? There he is; he’s
bigger than ever; he’s enormous; they can’t
get his weight down. Look at him!”

Swithin Forsyte, tall, square, and broad, with a chest
like a pouter pigeon’s in its plumage of bright
waistcoats, came strutting towards them.

“Er—­how are you?” he said in
his dandified way, aspirating the ‘h’
strongly (this difficult letter was almost absolutely
safe in his keeping)—­“how are you?”

Each brother wore an air of aggravation as he looked
at the other two, knowing by experience that they
would try to eclipse his ailments.

“We were just saying,” said James, “that
you don’t get any thinner.”

Swithin protruded his pale round eyes with the effort
of hearing.

“Thinner? I’m in good case,”
he said, leaning a little forward, “not one
of your thread-papers like you!”

But, afraid of losing the expansion of his chest,
he leaned back again into a state of immobility, for
he prized nothing so highly as a distinguished appearance.

Aunt Ann turned her old eyes from one to the other.
Indulgent and severe was her look. In turn
the three brothers looked at Ann. She was getting
shaky. Wonderful woman! Eighty-six if a
day; might live another ten years, and had never been
strong. Swithin and James, the twins, were only
seventy-five, Nicholas a mere baby of seventy or so.
All were strong, and the inference was comforting.
Of all forms of property their respective healths
naturally concerned them most.

“I’m very well in myself,” proceeded
James, “but my nerves are out of order.
The least thing worries me to death. I shall
have to go to Bath.”

“Bath!” said Nicholas. “I’ve
tried Harrogate. That’s no good. What
I want is sea air. There’s nothing like
Yarmouth. Now, when I go there I sleep....”

“My liver’s very bad,” interrupted
Swithin slowly. “Dreadful pain here;”
and he placed his hand on his right side.

“Want of exercise,” muttered James, his
eyes on the china. He quickly added: “I
get a pain there, too.”

Swithin reddened, a resemblance to a turkey-cock coming
upon his old face.

“Exercise!” he said. “I take
plenty: I never use the lift at the Club.”

June stood before him, her resolute small face raised
from her little height to his great height, and her
hand outheld.

The brightness faded from James’s visage.

Page 11

“How are you?” he said, brooding over
her. “So you’re going to Wales to-morrow
to visit your young man’s aunts? You’ll
have a lot of rain there. This isn’t real
old Worcester.” He tapped the bowl.
“Now, that set I gave your mother when she
married was the genuine thing.”

June shook hands one by one with her three great-uncles,
and turned to Aunt Ann. A very sweet look had
come into the old lady’s face, she kissed the
girl’s check with trembling fervour.

“Well, my dear,” she said, “and
so you’re going for a whole month!”

The girl passed on, and Aunt Ann looked after her
slim little figure. The old lady’s round,
steel grey eyes, over which a film like a bird’s
was beginning to come, followed her wistfully amongst
the bustling crowd, for people were beginning to say
good-bye; and her finger-tips, pressing and pressing
against each other, were busy again with the recharging
of her will against that inevitable ultimate departure
of her own.

‘Yes,’ she thought, ’everybody’s
been most kind; quite a lot of people come to congratulate
her. She ought to be very happy.’
Amongst the throng of people by the door, the well-dressed
throng drawn from the families of lawyers and doctors,
from the Stock Exchange, and all the innumerable avocations
of the upper-middle class—­there were only
some twenty percent of Forsytes; but to Aunt Ann they
seemed all Forsytes—­and certainly there
was not much difference—­she saw only her
own flesh and blood. It was her world, this
family, and she knew no other, had never perhaps known
any other. All their little secrets, illnesses,
engagements, and marriages, how they were getting on,
and whether they were making money—­all
this was her property, her delight, her life; beyond
this only a vague, shadowy mist of facts and persons
of no real significance. This it was that she
would have to lay down when it came to her turn to
die; this which gave to her that importance, that secret
self-importance, without which none of us can bear
to live; and to this she clung wistfully, with a greed
that grew each day! If life were slipping away
from her, this she would retain to the end.

She thought of June’s father, young Jolyon,
who had run away with that foreign girl. And
what a sad blow to his father and to them all.
Such a promising young fellow! A sad blow,
though there had been no public scandal, most fortunately,
Jo’s wife seeking for no divorce! A long
time ago! And when June’s mother died,
six years ago, Jo had married that woman, and they
had two children now, so she had heard. Still,
he had forfeited his right to be there, had cheated
her of the complete fulfilment of her family pride,
deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing and
kissing him of whom she had been so proud, such a promising
young fellow! The thought rankled with the bitterness
of a long-inflicted injury in her tenacious old heart.
A little water stood in her eyes. With a handkerchief
of the finest lawn she wiped them stealthily.

Page 12

“Well, Aunt Ann?” said a voice behind.

Soames Forsyte, flat-shouldered, clean-shaven, flat-cheeked,
flat-waisted, yet with something round and secret about
his whole appearance, looked downwards and aslant
at Aunt Ann, as though trying to see through the side
of his own nose.

“And what do you think of the engagement?”
he asked.

Aunt Ann’s eyes rested on him proudly; of all
the nephews since young Jolyon’s departure from
the family nest, he was now her favourite, for she
recognised in him a sure trustee of the family soul
that must so soon slip beyond her keeping.

“Very nice for the young man,” she said;
“and he’s a good-looking young fellow;
but I doubt if he’s quite the right lover for
dear June.”

Soames touched the edge of a gold-lacquered lustre.

“She’ll tame him,” he said, stealthily
wetting his finger and rubbing it on the knobby bulbs.
“That’s genuine old lacquer; you can’t
get it nowadays. It’d do well in a sale
at Jobson’s.” He spoke with relish,
as though he felt that he was cheering up his old
aunt. It was seldom he was so confidential.
“I wouldn’t mind having it myself,”
he added; “you can always get your price for
old lacquer.”

“You’re so clever with all those things,”
said Aunt Ann. “And how is dear Irene?”

Soames’s smile died.

“Pretty well,” he said. “Complains
she can’t sleep; she sleeps a great deal better
than I do,” and he looked at his wife, who was
talking to Bosinney by the door.

Aunt Ann sighed.

“Perhaps,” she said, “it will be
just as well for her not to see so much of June.
She’s such a decided character, dear June!”

Soames flushed; his flushes passed rapidly over his
flat cheeks and centered between his eyes, where they
remained, the stamp of disturbing thoughts.

“I don’t know what she sees in that little
flibbertigibbet,” he burst out, but noticing
that they were no longer alone, he turned and again
began examining the lustre.

“They tell me Jolyon’s bought another
house,” said his father’s voice close
by; “he must have a lot of money—­he
must have more money than he knows what to do with!
Montpellier Square, they say; close to Soames!
They never told me, Irene never tells me anything!”

“Capital position, not two minutes from me,”
said the voice of Swithin, “and from my rooms
I can drive to the Club in eight.”

The position of their houses was of vital importance
to the Forsytes, nor was this remarkable, since the
whole spirit of their success was embodied therein.

Their father, of farming stock, had come from Dorsetshire
near the beginning of the century.

’Superior Dosset Forsyte, as he was called by
his intimates, had been a stonemason by trade, and
risen to the position of a master-builder.

Towards the end of his life he moved to London, where,
building on until he died, he was buried at Highgate.
He left over thirty thousand pounds between his ten
children. Old Jolyon alluded to him, if at all,
as ’A hard, thick sort of man; not much refinement
about him.’ The second generation of Forsytes
felt indeed that he was not greatly to their credit.
The only aristocratic trait they could find in his
character was a habit of drinking Madeira.

Page 13

Aunt Hester, an authority on family history, described
him thus: “I don’t recollect that
he ever did anything; at least, not in my time.
He was er—­an owner of houses, my dear.
His hair about your Uncle Swithin’s colour;
rather a square build. Tall? No—­not
very tall” (he had been five feet five, with
a mottled face); “a fresh-coloured man.
I remember he used to drink Madeira; but ask your
Aunt Ann. What was his father? He—­er—­had
to do with the land down in Dorsetshire, by the sea.”

James once went down to see for himself what sort
of place this was that they had come from. He
found two old farms, with a cart track rutted into
the pink earth, leading down to a mill by the beach;
a little grey church with a buttressed outer wall,
and a smaller and greyer chapel. The stream which
worked the mill came bubbling down in a dozen rivulets,
and pigs were hunting round that estuary. A haze
hovered over the prospect. Down this hollow,
with their feet deep in the mud and their faces towards
the sea, it appeared that the primeval Forsytes had
been content to walk Sunday after Sunday for hundreds
of years.

Whether or no James had cherished hopes of an inheritance,
or of something rather distinguished to be found down
there, he came back to town in a poor way, and went
about with a pathetic attempt at making the best of
a bad job.

“There’s very little to be had out of
that,” he said; “regular country little
place, old as the hills....”

Its age was felt to be a comfort. Old Jolyon,
in whom a desperate honesty welled up at times, would
allude to his ancestors as: “Yeomen—­I
suppose very small beer.” Yet he would
repeat the word ‘yeomen’ as if it afforded
him consolation.

They had all done so well for themselves, these Forsytes,
that they were all what is called ‘of a certain
position.’ They had shares in all sorts
of things, not as yet—­with the exception
of Timothy—­in consols, for they had no
dread in life like that of 3 per cent. for their money.
They collected pictures, too, and were supporters
of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial
to their sick domestics. From their father,
the builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and
mortar. Originally, perhaps, members of some
primitive sect, they were now in the natural course
of things members of the Church of England, and caused
their wives and children to attend with some regularity
the more fashionable churches of the Metropolis.
To have doubted their Christianity would have caused
them both pain and surprise. Some of them paid
for pews, thus expressing in the most practical form
their sympathy with the teachings of Christ.

Their residences, placed at stated intervals round
the park, watched like sentinels, lest the fair heart
of this London, where their desires were fixed, should
slip from their clutches, and leave them lower in their
own estimations.

Page 14

There was old Jolyon in Stanhope Place; the Jameses
in Park Lane; Swithin in the lonely glory of orange
and blue chambers in Hyde Park Mansions—­he
had never married, not he—­the Soamses in
their nest off Knightsbridge; the Rogers in Prince’s
Gardens (Roger was that remarkable Forsyte who had
conceived and carried out the notion of bringing up
his four sons to a new profession. “Collect
house property, nothing like it,” he would say;
“I never did anything else").

The Haymans again—­Mrs. Hayman was the one
married Forsyte sister—­in a house high
up on Campden Hill, shaped like a giraffe, and so tall
that it gave the observer a crick in the neck; the
Nicholases in Ladbroke Grove, a spacious abode and
a great bargain; and last, but not least, Timothy’s
on the Bayswater Road, where Ann, and Juley, and Hester,
lived under his protection.

But all this time James was musing, and now he inquired
of his host and brother what he had given for that
house in Montpellier Square. He himself had
had his eye on a house there for the last two years,
but they wanted such a price.

Old Jolyon recounted the details of his purchase.

“Twenty-two years to run?” repeated James;
“The very house I was after—­you’ve
given too much for it!”

Old Jolyon frowned.

“It’s not that I want it,” said
James hastily; it wouldn’t suit my purpose at
that price. Soames knows the house, well—­he’ll
tell you it’s too dear—­his opinion’s
worth having.”

“I don’t,” said old Jolyon, “care
a fig for his opinion.”

“Well,” murmured James, “you will
have your own way—­it’s a good opinion.
Good-bye! We’re going to drive down to
Hurlingham. They tell me June’s going to
Wales. You’ll be lonely tomorrow.
What’ll you do with yourself? You’d
better come and dine with us!”

Old Jolyon refused. He went down to the front
door and saw them into their barouche, and twinkled
at them, having already forgotten his spleen—­Mrs.
James facing the horses, tall and majestic with auburn
hair; on her left, Irene—­the two husbands,
father and son, sitting forward, as though they expected
something, opposite their wives. Bobbing and
bounding upon the spring cushions, silent, swaying
to each motion of their chariot, old Jolyon watched
them drive away under the sunlight.

During the drive the silence was broken by Mrs. James.

“Did you ever see such a collection of rumty-too
people?”

Soames, glancing at her beneath his eyelids, nodded,
and he saw Irene steal at him one of her unfathomable
looks. It is likely enough that each branch
of the Forsyte family made that remark as they drove
away from old Jolyon’s ‘At Home!’

Amongst the last of the departing guests the fourth
and fifth brothers, Nicholas and Roger, walked away
together, directing their steps alongside Hyde Park
towards the Praed Street Station of the Underground.
Like all other Forsytes of a certain age they kept
carriages of their own, and never took cabs if by
any means they could avoid it.

Page 15

The day was bright, the trees of the Park in the full
beauty of mid-June foliage; the brothers did not seem
to notice phenomena, which contributed, nevertheless,
to the jauntiness of promenade and conversation.

“Yes,” said Roger, “she’s
a good-lookin’ woman, that wife of Soames’s.
I’m told they don’t get on.”

This brother had a high forehead, and the freshest
colour of any of the Forsytes; his light grey eyes
measured the street frontage of the houses by the
way, and now and then he would level his, umbrella
and take a ‘lunar,’ as he expressed it,
of the varying heights.

“She’d no money,” replied Nicholas.

He himself had married a good deal of money, of which,
it being then the golden age before the Married Women’s
Property Act, he had mercifully been enabled to make
a successful use.

“What was her father?”

“Heron was his name, a Professor, so they tell
me.”

Roger shook his head.

“There’s no money in that,” he said.

“They say her mother’s father was cement.”

Roger’s face brightened.

“But he went bankrupt,” went on Nicholas.

“Ah!” exclaimed Roger, “Soames will
have trouble with her; you mark my words, he’ll
have trouble—­she’s got a foreign look.”

Nicholas licked his lips.

“She’s a pretty woman,” and he waved
aside a crossing-sweeper.

“How did he get hold of her?” asked Roger
presently. “She must cost him a pretty
penny in dress!”

“Ann tells me,” replied Nicholas, “he
was half-cracked about her. She refused him five
times. James, he’s nervous about it, I
can see.”

“Ah!” said Roger again; “I’m
sorry for James; he had trouble with Dartie.”
His pleasant colour was heightened by exercise, he
swung his umbrella to the level of his eye more frequently
than ever. Nicholas’s face also wore a
pleasant look.

“Too pale for me,” he said, “but
her figures capital!”

Roger made no reply.

“I call her distinguished-looking,” he
said at last—­it was the highest praise
in the Forsyte vocabulary. “That young
Bosinney will never do any good for himself.
They say at Burkitt’s he’s one of these
artistic chaps—­got an idea of improving
English architecture; there’s no money in that!
I should like to hear what Timothy would say to it.”

They entered the station.

“What class are you going? I go second.”

“No second for me,” said Nicholas;—­“you
never know what you may catch.”

He took a first-class ticket to Notting Hill Gate;
Roger a second to South Kensington. The train
coming in a minute later, the two brothers parted
and entered their respective compartments. Each
felt aggrieved that the other had not modified his
habits to secure his society a little longer; but
as Roger voiced it in his thoughts:

‘Always a stubborn beggar, Nick!’

And as Nicholas expressed it to himself:

Page 16

‘Cantankerous chap Roger—­always was!’

There was little sentimentality about the Forsytes.
In that great London, which they had conquered and
become merged in, what time had they to be sentimental?

CHAPTER II

OLD JOLYON GOES TO THE OPERA

At five o’clock the following day old Jolyon
sat alone, a cigar between his lips, and on a table
by his side a cup of tea. He was tired, and
before he had finished his cigar he fell asleep.
A fly settled on his hair, his breathing sounded heavy
in the drowsy silence, his upper lip under the white
moustache puffed in and out. From between the
fingers of his veined and wrinkled hand the cigar,
dropping on the empty hearth, burned itself out.

The gloomy little study, with windows of stained glass
to exclude the view, was full of dark green velvet
and heavily-carved mahogany—­a suite of
which old Jolyon was wont to say: ’Shouldn’t
wonder if it made a big price some day!’

It was pleasant to think that in the after life he
could get more for things than he had given.

In the rich brown atmosphere peculiar to back rooms
in the mansion of a Forsyte, the Rembrandtesque effect
of his great head, with its white hair, against the
cushion of his high-backed seat, was spoiled by the
moustache, which imparted a somewhat military look
to his face. An old clock that had been with
him since before his marriage forty years ago kept
with its ticking a jealous record of the seconds slipping
away forever from its old master.

He had never cared for this room, hardly going into
it from one year’s end to another, except to
take cigars from the Japanese cabinet in the corner,
and the room now had its revenge.

His temples, curving like thatches over the hollows
beneath, his cheek-bones and chin, all were sharpened
in his sleep, and there had come upon his face the
confession that he was an old man.

He woke. June had gone! James had said
he would be lonely. James had always been a poor
thing. He recollected with satisfaction that
he had bought that house over James’s head.

Serve him right for sticking at the price; the only
thing the fellow thought of was money. Had he
given too much, though? It wanted a lot of doing
to—­He dared say he would want all his money
before he had done with this affair of June’s.
He ought never to have allowed the engagement.
She had met this Bosinney at the house of Baynes,
Baynes and Bildeboy, the architects. He believed
that Baynes, whom he knew—­a bit of an old
woman—­was the young man’s uncle by
marriage. After that she’d been always
running after him; and when she took a thing into her
head there was no stopping her. She was continually
taking up with ’lame ducks’ of one sort
or another. This fellow had no money, but she
must needs become engaged to him—­a harumscarum,
unpractical chap, who would get himself into no end
of difficulties.

Page 17

She had come to him one day in her slap-dash way and
told him; and, as if it were any consolation, she
had added:

“He’s so splendid; he’s often lived
on cocoa for a week!”

“And he wants you to live on cocoa too?”

“Oh no; he is getting into the swim now.”

Old Jolyon had taken his cigar from under his white
moustaches, stained by coffee at the edge, and looked
at her, that little slip of a thing who had got such
a grip of his heart. He knew more about ‘swims’
than his granddaughter. But she, having clasped
her hands on his knees, rubbed her chin against him,
making a sound like a purring cat. And, knocking
the ash off his cigar, he had exploded in nervous desperation:

“You’re all alike: you won’t
be satisfied till you’ve got what you want.
If you must come to grief, you must; I wash my hands
of it.”

So, he had washed his hands of it, making the condition
that they should not marry until Bosinney had at least
four hundred a year.

“I shan’t be able to give you very much,”
he had said, a formula to which June was not unaccustomed.
“Perhaps this What’s-his-name will provide
the cocoa.”

He had hardly seen anything of her since it began.
A bad business! He had no notion of giving
her a lot of money to enable a fellow he knew nothing
about to live on in idleness. He had seen that
sort of thing before; no good ever came of it.
Worst of all, he had no hope of shaking her resolution;
she was as obstinate as a mule, always had been from
a child. He didn’t see where it was to
end. They must cut their coat according to their
cloth. He would not give way till he saw young
Bosinney with an income of his own. That June
would have trouble with the fellow was as plain as
a pikestaff; he had no more idea of money than a cow.
As to this rushing down to Wales to visit the young
man’s aunts, he fully expected they were old
cats.

And, motionless, old Jolyon stared at the wall; but
for his open eyes, he might have been asleep....
The idea of supposing that young cub Soames could
give him advice! He had always been a cub, with
his nose in the air! He would be setting up
as a man of property next, with a place in the country!
A man of property! H’mph! Like his
father, he was always nosing out bargains, a cold-blooded
young beggar!

He rose, and, going to the cabinet, began methodically
stocking his cigar-case from a bundle fresh in.
They were not bad at the price, but you couldn’t
get a good cigar, nowadays, nothing to hold a candle
to those old Superfinos of Hanson and Bridger’s.
That was a cigar!

The thought, like some stealing perfume, carried him
back to those wonderful nights at Richmond when after
dinner he sat smoking on the terrace of the Crown
and Sceptre with Nicholas Treffry and Traquair and
Jack Herring and Anthony Thornworthy. How good
his cigars were then! Poor old Nick!—­dead,
and Jack Herring—­dead, and Traquair—­dead
of that wife of his, and Thornworthy—­awfully
shaky (no wonder, with his appetite).

Page 18

Of all the company of those days he himself alone
seemed left, except Swithin, of course, and he so
outrageously big there was no doing anything with
him.

Difficult to believe it was so long ago; he felt young
still! Of all his thoughts, as he stood there
counting his cigars, this was the most poignant, the
most bitter. With his white head and his loneliness
he had remained young and green at heart. And
those Sunday afternoons on Hampstead Heath, when young
Jolyon and he went for a stretch along the Spaniard’s
Road to Highgate, to Child’s Hill, and back over
the Heath again to dine at Jack Straw’s Castle—­how
delicious his cigars were then! And such weather!
There was no weather now.

When June was a toddler of five, and every other Sunday
he took her to the Zoo, away from the society of those
two good women, her mother and her grandmother, and
at the top of the bear den baited his umbrella with
buns for her favourite bears, how sweet his cigars
were then!

Cigars! He had not even succeeded in out-living
his palate—­the famous palate that in the
fifties men swore by, and speaking of him, said:
“Forsyte’s the best palate in London!”
The palate that in a sense had made his fortune—­the
fortune of the celebrated tea men, Forsyte and Treffry,
whose tea, like no other man’s tea, had a romantic
aroma, the charm of a quite singular genuineness.
About the house of Forsyte and Treffry in the City
had clung an air of enterprise and mystery, of special
dealings in special ships, at special ports, with special
Orientals.

He had worked at that business! Men did work
in those days! these young pups hardly knew the meaning
of the word. He had gone into every detail,
known everything that went on, sometimes sat up all
night over it. And he had always chosen his
agents himself, prided himself on it. His eye
for men, he used to say, had been the secret of his
success, and the exercise of this masterful power
of selection had been the only part of it all that
he had really liked. Not a career for a man of
his ability. Even now, when the business had
been turned into a Limited Liability Company, and
was declining (he had got out of his shares long ago),
he felt a sharp chagrin in thinking of that time.
How much better he might have done! He would
have succeeded splendidly at the Bar! He had
even thought of standing for Parliament. How
often had not Nicholas Treffry said to him:

“You could do anything, Jo, if you weren’t
so d-damned careful of yourself!” Dear old Nick!
Such a good fellow, but a racketty chap! The
notorious Treffry! He had never taken any care
of himself. So he was dead. Old Jolyon
counted his cigars with a steady hand, and it came
into his mind to wonder if perhaps he had been too
careful of himself.

He put the cigar-case in the breast of his coat, buttoned
it in, and walked up the long flights to his bedroom,
leaning on one foot and the other, and helping himself
by the bannister. The house was too big.
After June was married, if she ever did marry this
fellow, as he supposed she would, he would let it
and go into rooms. What was the use of keeping
half a dozen servants eating their heads off?

Page 19

The butler came to the ring of his bell—­a
large man with a beard, a soft tread, and a peculiar
capacity for silence. Old Jolyon told him to
put his dress clothes out; he was going to dine at
the Club.

How long had the carriage been back from taking Miss
June to the station? Since two? Then let
him come round at half-past six!

The Club which old Jolyon entered on the stroke of
seven was one of those political institutions of the
upper middle class which have seen better days.
In spite of being talked about, perhaps in consequence
of being talked about, it betrayed a disappointing
vitality. People had grown tired of saying that
the ‘Disunion’ was on its last legs.
Old Jolyon would say it, too, yet disregarded the
fact in a manner truly irritating to well-constituted
Clubmen.

“Why do you keep your name on?” Swithin
often asked him with profound vexation. “Why
don’t you join the ‘Polyglot’?
You can’t get a wine like our Heidsieck under
twenty shillin’ a bottle anywhere in London;”
and, dropping his voice, he added: “There’s
only five hundred dozen left. I drink it every
night of my life.”

“I’ll think of it,” old Jolyon would
answer; but when he did think of it there was always
the question of fifty guineas entrance fee, and it
would take him four or five years to get in.
He continued to think of it.

He was too old to be a Liberal, had long ceased to
believe in the political doctrines of his Club, had
even been known to allude to them as ‘wretched
stuff,’ and it afforded him pleasure to continue
a member in the teeth of principles so opposed to
his own. He had always had a contempt for the
place, having joined it many years ago when they refused
to have him at the ‘Hotch Potch’ owing
to his being ‘in trade.’ As if he
were not as good as any of them! He naturally
despised the Club that did take him. The members
were a poor lot, many of them in the City —­stockbrokers,
solicitors, auctioneers—­what not!
Like most men of strong character but not too much
originality, old Jolyon set small store by the class
to which he belonged. Faithfully he followed
their customs, social and otherwise, and secretly
he thought them ‘a common lot.’

Years and philosophy, of which he had his share, had
dimmed the recollection of his defeat at the ‘Hotch
Potch’; and now in his thoughts it was enshrined
as the Queen of Clubs. He would have been a member
all these years himself, but, owing to the slipshod
way his proposer, Jack Herring, had gone to work,
they had not known what they were doing in keeping
him out. Why! they had taken his son Jo at once,
and he believed the boy was still a member; he had
received a letter dated from there eight years ago.

He had not been near the ‘Disunion’ for
months, and the house had undergone the piebald decoration
which people bestow on old houses and old ships when
anxious to sell them.

‘Beastly colour, the smoking-room!’ he
thought. ’The dining-room is good!’

Page 20

Its gloomy chocolate, picked out with light green,
took his fancy.

He ordered dinner, and sat down in the very corner,
at the very table perhaps! (things did not progress
much at the ‘Disunion,’ a Club of almost
Radical principles) at which he and young Jolyon used
to sit twenty-five years ago, when he was taking the
latter to Drury Lane, during his holidays.

The boy had loved the theatre, and old Jolyon recalled
how he used to sit opposite, concealing his excitement
under a careful but transparent nonchalance.

He ordered himself, too, the very dinner the boy had
always chosen-soup, whitebait, cutlets, and a tart.
Ah! if he were only opposite now!

The two had not met for fourteen years. And
not for the first time during those fourteen years
old Jolyon wondered whether he had been a little to
blame in the matter of his son. An unfortunate
love-affair with that precious flirt Danae Thornworthy
(now Danae Pellew), Anthony Thornworthy’s daughter,
had thrown him on the rebound into the arms of June’s
mother. He ought perhaps to have put a spoke
in the wheel of their marriage; they were too young;
but after that experience of Jo’s susceptibility
he had been only too anxious to see him married.
And in four years the crash had come! To have
approved his son’s conduct in that crash was,
of course, impossible; reason and training—­that
combination of potent factors which stood for his principles—­told
him of this impossibility, and his heart cried out.
The grim remorselessness of that business had no
pity for hearts. There was June, the atom with
flaming hair, who had climbed all over him, twined
and twisted herself about him—­about his
heart that was made to be the plaything and beloved
resort of tiny, helpless things. With characteristic
insight he saw he must part with one or with the other;
no half-measures could serve in such a situation.
In that lay its tragedy. And the tiny, helpless
thing prevailed. He would not run with the hare
and hunt with the hounds, and so to his son he said
good-bye.

That good-bye had lasted until now.

He had proposed to continue a reduced allowance to
young Jolyon, but this had been refused, and perhaps
that refusal had hurt him more than anything, for
with it had gone the last outlet of his penned-in
affection; and there had come such tangible and solid
proof of rupture as only a transaction in property,
a bestowal or refusal of such, could supply.

His dinner tasted flat. His pint of champagne
was dry and bitter stuff, not like the Veuve Clicquots
of old days.

Over his cup of coffee, he bethought him that he would
go to the opera. In the Times, therefore—­he
had a distrust of other papers—­he read the
announcement for the evening. It was ‘Fidelio.’

Mercifully not one of those new-fangled German pantomimes
by that fellow Wagner.

Putting on his ancient opera hat, which, with its
brim flattened by use, and huge capacity, looked like
an emblem of greater days, and, pulling out an old
pair of very thin lavender kid gloves smelling strongly
of Russia leather, from habitual proximity to the
cigar-case in the pocket of his overcoat, he stepped
into a hansom.

Page 21

The cab rattled gaily along the streets, and old Jolyon
was struck by their unwonted animation.

‘The hotels must be doing a tremendous business,’
he thought. A few years ago there had been none
of these big hotels. He made a satisfactory
reflection on some property he had in the neighbourhood.
It must be going up in value by leaps and bounds!
What traffic!

But from that he began indulging in one of those strange
impersonal speculations, so uncharacteristic of a
Forsyte, wherein lay, in part, the secret of his supremacy
amongst them. What atoms men were, and what a
lot of them! And what would become of them all?

He stumbled as he got out of the cab, gave the man
his exact fare, walked up to the ticket office to
take his stall, and stood there with his purse in
his hand—­he always carried his money in
a purse, never having approved of that habit of carrying
it loosely in the pockets, as so many young men did
nowadays. The official leaned out, like an old
dog from a kennel.

“Why,” he said in a surprised voice, “it’s
Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! So it is! Haven’t
seen you, sir, for years. Dear me! Times
aren’t what they were. Why! you and your
brother, and that auctioneer—­Mr. Traquair,
and Mr. Nicholas Treffry—­you used to have
six or seven stalls here regular every season.
And how are you, sir? We don’t get younger!”

The colour in old Jolyon’s eyes deepened; he
paid his guinea. They had not forgotten him.
He marched in, to the sounds of the overture, like
an old war-horse to battle.

Folding his opera hat, he sat down, drew out his lavender
gloves in the old way, and took up his glasses for
a long look round the house. Dropping them at
last on his folded hat, he fixed his eyes on the curtain.
More poignantly than ever he felt that it was all
over and done with him. Where were all the women,
the pretty women, the house used to be so full of?
Where was that old feeling in the heart as he waited
for one of those great singers? Where that sensation
of the intoxication of life and of his own power to
enjoy it all?

The greatest opera-goer of his day! There was
no opera now! That fellow Wagner had ruined everything;
no melody left, nor any voices to sing it. Ah!
the wonderful singers! Gone! He sat watching
the old scenes acted, a numb feeling at his heart.

From the curl of silver over his ear to the pose of
his foot in its elastic-sided patent boot, there was
nothing clumsy or weak about old Jolyon. He
was as upright—­very nearly—­as
in those old times when he came every night; his sight
was as good—­almost as good. But what
a feeling of weariness and disillusion!

He had been in the habit all his life of enjoying
things, even imperfect things—­and there
had been many imperfect things—­he had enjoyed
them all with moderation, so as to keep himself young.
But now he was deserted by his power of enjoyment,
by his philosophy, and left with this dreadful feeling
that it was all done with. Not even the Prisoners’
Chorus, nor Florian’s Song, had the power to
dispel the gloom of his loneliness.

Page 22

If Jo were only with him! The boy must be forty
by now. He had wasted fourteen years out of
the life of his only son. And Jo was no longer
a social pariah. He was married. Old Jolyon
had been unable to refrain from marking his appreciation
of the action by enclosing his son a cheque for L500.
The cheque had been returned in a letter from the
’Hotch Potch,’ couched in these words.

’Mydearestfather,

’Your generous gift was welcome as a sign that
you might think worse of me. I return it, but
should you think fit to invest it for the benefit
of the little chap (we call him Jolly), who bears our
Christian and, by courtesy, our surname, I shall be
very glad.

’I hope with all my heart that your health is
as good as ever.

’Your loving son,

‘Jo.’

The letter was like the boy. He had always been
an amiable chap. Old Jolyon had sent this reply:

’MydearJo,

’The sum (L500) stands in my books for the benefit
of your boy, under the name of Jolyon Forsyte, and
will be duly-credited with interest at 5 per cent.
I hope that you are doing well. My health remains
good at present.

’With love, I am, ’Your affectionate Father,
‘JolyonForsyte.’

And every year on the 1st of January he had added
a hundred and the interest. The sum was mounting
up—­next New Year’s Day it would be
fifteen hundred and odd pounds! And it is difficult
to say how much satisfaction he had got out of that
yearly transaction. But the correspondence had
ended.

In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct,
partly constitutional, partly the result, as in thousands
of his class, of the continual handling and watching
of affairs, prompting him to judge conduct by results
rather than by principle, there was at the bottom of
his heart a sort of uneasiness. His son ought,
under the circumstances, to have gone to the dogs;
that law was laid down in all the novels, sermons,
and plays he had ever read, heard, or witnessed.

After receiving the cheque back there seemed to him
to be something wrong somewhere. Why had his
son not gone to the dogs? But, then, who could
tell?

He had heard, of course—­in fact, he had
made it his business to find out—­that Jo
lived in St. John’s Wood, that he had a little
house in Wistaria Avenue with a garden, and took his
wife about with him into society—­a queer
sort of society, no doubt—­and that they
had two children—­the little chap they called
Jolly (considering the circumstances the name struck
him as cynical, and old Jolyon both feared and disliked
cynicism), and a girl called Holly, born since the
marriage. Who could tell what his son’s
circumstances really were? He had capitalized
the income he had inherited from his mother’s
father and joined Lloyd’s as an underwriter;
he painted pictures, too—­water-colours.
Old Jolyon knew this, for he had surreptitiously
bought them from time to time, after chancing to see
his son’s name signed at the bottom of a representation
of the river Thames in a dealer’s window.
He thought them bad, and did not hang them because
of the signature; he kept them locked up in a drawer.

Page 23

In the great opera-house a terrible yearning came
on him to see his son. He remembered the days
when he had been wont to slide him, in a brown holland
suit, to and fro under the arch of his legs; the times
when he ran beside the boy’s pony, teaching
him to ride; the day he first took him to school.
He had been a loving, lovable little chap! After
he went to Eton he had acquired, perhaps, a little
too much of that desirable manner which old Jolyon
knew was only to be obtained at such places and at
great expense; but he had always been companionable.
Always a companion, even after Cambridge—­a
little far off, perhaps, owing to the advantages he
had received. Old Jolyon’s feeling towards
our public schools and ’Varsities never wavered,
and he retained touchingly his attitude of admiration
and mistrust towards a system appropriate to the highest
in the land, of which he had not himself been privileged
to partake.... Now that June had gone and left,
or as good as left him, it would have been a comfort
to see his son again. Guilty of this treason
to his family, his principles, his class, old Jolyon
fixed his eyes on the singer. A poor thing—­a
wretched poor thing! And the Florian a perfect
stick!

It was over. They were easily pleased nowadays!

In the crowded street he snapped up a cab under the
very nose of a stout and much younger gentleman, who
had already assumed it to be his own. His route
lay through Pall Mall, and at the corner, instead of
going through the Green Park, the cabman turned to
drive up St. James’s Street. Old Jolyon
put his hand through the trap (he could not bear being
taken out of his way); in turning, however, he found
himself opposite the ‘Hotch Potch,’ and
the yearning that had been secretly with him the whole
evening prevailed. He called to the driver to
stop. He would go in and ask if Jo still belonged
there.

He went in. The hall looked exactly as it did
when he used to dine there with Jack Herring, and
they had the best cook in London; and he looked round
with the shrewd, straight glance that had caused him
all his life to be better served than most men.

“Mr. Jolyon Forsyte still a member here?”

“Yes, sir; in the Club now, sir. What
name?”

Old Jolyon was taken aback.

“His father,” he said.

And having spoken, he took his stand, back to the
fireplace.

Young Jolyon, on the point of leaving the Club, had
put on his hat, and was in the act of crossing the
hall, as the porter met him. He was no longer
young, with hair going grey, and face—­a
narrower replica of his father’s, with the same
large drooping moustache—­decidedly worn.
He turned pale. This meeting was terrible after
all those years, for nothing in the world was so terrible
as a scene. They met and crossed hands without
a word. Then, with a quaver in his voice, the
father said:

“How are you, my boy?”

The son answered:

Page 24

“How are you, Dad?”

Old Jolyon’s hand trembled in its thin lavender
glove.

“If you’re going my way,” he said,
“I can give you a lift.”

And as though in the habit of taking each other home
every night they went out and stepped into the cab.

To old Jolyon it seemed that his son had grown.
’More of a man altogether,’ was his comment.
Over the natural amiability of that son’s face
had come a rather sardonic mask, as though he had found
in the circumstances of his life the necessity for
armour. The features were certainly those of
a Forsyte, but the expression was more the introspective
look of a student or philosopher. He had no doubt
been obliged to look into himself a good deal in the
course of those fifteen years.

To young Jolyon the first sight of his father was
undoubtedly a shock—­he looked so worn and
old. But in the cab he seemed hardly to have
changed, still having the calm look so well remembered,
still being upright and keen-eyed.

“You look well, Dad.”

“Middling,” old Jolyon answered.

He was the prey of an anxiety that he found he must
put into words. Having got his son back like
this, he felt he must know what was his financial
position.

“Jo,” he said, “I should like to
hear what sort of water you’re in. I suppose
you’re in debt?”

He put it this way that his son might find it easier
to confess.

Young Jolyon answered in his ironical voice:

“No! I’m not in debt!”

Old Jolyon saw that he was angry, and touched his
hand. He had run a risk. It was worth
it, however, and Jo had never been sulky with him.
They drove on, without speaking again, to Stanhope
Gate. Old Jolyon invited him in, but young Jolyon
shook his head.

“June’s not here,” said his father
hastily: “went of to-day on a visit.
I suppose you know that she’s engaged to be married?”

“Already?” murmured young Jolyon’.

Old Jolyon stepped out, and, in paying the cab fare,
for the first time in his life gave the driver a sovereign
in mistake for a shilling.

Placing the coin in his mouth, the cabman whipped
his horse secretly on the underneath and hurried away.

Old Jolyon turned the key softly in the lock, pushed
open the door, and beckoned. His son saw him
gravely hanging up his coat, with an expression on
his face like that of a boy who intends to steal cherries.

The door of the dining-room was open, the gas turned
low; a spirit-urn hissed on a tea-tray, and close
to it a cynical looking cat had fallen asleep on the
dining-table. Old Jolyon ‘shoo’d’
her off at once. The incident was a relief to
his feelings; he rattled his opera hat behind the
animal.

“She’s got fleas,” he said, following
her out of the room. Through the door in the
hall leading to the basement he called “Hssst!”
several times, as though assisting the cat’s
departure, till by some strange coincidence the butler
appeared below.

Page 25

“You can go to bed, Parfitt,” said old
Jolyon. “I will lock up and put out.”

When he again entered the dining-room the cat unfortunately
preceded him, with her tail in the air, proclaiming
that she had seen through this manouevre for suppressing
the butler from the first....

A fatality had dogged old Jolyon’s domestic
stratagems all his life.

Young Jolyon could not help smiling. He was
very well versed in irony, and everything that evening
seemed to him ironical. The episode of the cat;
the announcement of his own daughter’s engagement.
So he had no more part or parcel in her than he had
in the Puss! And the poetical justice of this
appealed to him.

“What is June like now?” he asked.

“She’s a little thing,” returned
old Jolyon; they say she’s like me, but that’s
their folly. She’s more like your mother—­the
same eyes and hair.”

“Ah! and she is pretty?”

Old Jolyon was too much of a Forsyte to praise anything
freely; especially anything for which he had a genuine
admiration.

The look on his face again gave young Jolyon the shock
he had felt on first seeing his father.

“What will you do with yourself, Dad?
I suppose she’s wrapped up in him?”

“Do with myself?” repeated old Jolyon
with an angry break in his voice. “It’ll
be miserable work living here alone. I don’t
know how it’s to end. I wish to goodness....”
He checked himself, and added: “The question
is, what had I better do with this house?”

Young Jolyon looked round the room. It was peculiarly
vast and dreary, decorated with the enormous pictures
of still life that he remembered as a boy—­sleeping
dogs with their noses resting on bunches of carrots,
together with onions and grapes lying side by side
in mild surprise. The house was a white elephant,
but he could not conceive of his father living in
a smaller place; and all the more did it all seem ironical.

In his great chair with the book-rest sat old Jolyon,
the figurehead of his family and class and creed,
with his white head and dome-like forehead, the representative
of moderation, and order, and love of property.
As lonely an old man as there was in London.

There he sat in the gloomy comfort of the room, a
puppet in the power of great forces that cared nothing
for family or class or creed, but moved, machine-like,
with dread processes to inscrutable ends. This
was how it struck young Jolyon, who had the impersonal
eye.

The poor old Dad! So this was the end, the purpose
to which he had lived with such magnificent moderation!
To be lonely, and grow older and older, yearning
for a soul to speak to!

Page 26

In his turn old Jolyon looked back at his son.
He wanted to talk about many things that he had been
unable to talk about all these years. It had
been impossible to seriously confide in June his conviction
that property in the Soho quarter would go up in value;
his uneasiness about that tremendous silence of Pippin,
the superintendent of the New Colliery Company, of
which he had so long been chairman; his disgust at
the steady fall in American Golgothas, or even to
discuss how, by some sort of settlement, he could
best avoid the payment of those death duties which
would follow his decease. Under the influence,
however, of a cup of tea, which he seemed to stir
indefinitely, he began to speak at last. A new
vista of life was thus opened up, a promised land of
talk, where he could find a harbour against the waves
of anticipation and regret; where he could soothe
his soul with the opium of devising how to round off
his property and make eternal the only part of him
that was to remain alive.

Young Jolyon was a good listener; it was his great
quality. He kept his eyes fixed on his father’s
face, putting a question now and then.

The clock struck one before old Jolyon had finished,
and at the sound of its striking his principles came
back. He took out his watch with a look of surprise:

“I must go to bed, Jo,” he said.

Young Jolyon rose and held out his hand to help his
father up. The old face looked worn and hollow
again; the eyes were steadily averted.

“Good-bye, my boy; take care of yourself.”

A moment passed, and young Jolyon, turning on his,
heel, marched out at the door. He could hardly
see; his smile quavered. Never in all the fifteen
years since he had first found out that life was no
simple business, had he found it so singularly complicated.

CHAPTER III
DINNER AT SWITHIN’S

In Swithin’s orange and light-blue dining-room,
facing the Park, the round table was laid for twelve.

A cut-glass chandelier filled with lighted candles
hung like a giant stalactite above its centre, radiating
over large gilt-framed mirrors, slabs of marble on
the tops of side-tables, and heavy gold chairs with
crewel worked seats. Everything betokened that
love of beauty so deeply implanted in each family
which has had its own way to make into Society, out
of the more vulgar heart of Nature. Swithin had
indeed an impatience of simplicity, a love of ormolu,
which had always stamped him amongst his associates
as a man of great, if somewhat luxurious taste; and
out of the knowledge that no one could possibly enter
his rooms without perceiving him to be a man of wealth,
he had derived a solid and prolonged happiness such
as perhaps no other circumstance in life had afforded
him.

Since his retirement from land agency, a profession
deplorable in his estimation, especially as to its
auctioneering department, he had abandoned himself
to naturally aristocratic tastes.

Page 27

The perfect luxury of his latter days had embedded
him like a fly in sugar; and his mind, where very
little took place from morning till night, was the
junction of two curiously opposite emotions, a lingering
and sturdy satisfaction that he had made his own way
and his own fortune, and a sense that a man of his
distinction should never have been allowed to soil
his mind with work.

He stood at the sideboard in a white waistcoat with
large gold and onyx buttons, watching his valet screw
the necks of three champagne bottles deeper into ice-pails.
Between the points of his stand-up collar, which—­though
it hurt him to move—­he would on no account
have had altered, the pale flesh of his under chin
remained immovable. His eyes roved from bottle
to bottle. He was debating, and he argued like
this: Jolyon drinks a glass, perhaps two, he’s
so careful of himself. James, he can’t
take his wine nowadays. Nicholas—­Fanny
and he would swill water he shouldn’t wonder!
Soames didn’t count; these young nephews —­Soames
was thirty-one—­couldn’t drink!
But Bosinney?

Encountering in the name of this stranger something
outside the range of his philosophy, Swithin paused.
A misgiving arose within him! It was impossible
to tell! June was only a girl, in love too!
Emily (Mrs. James) liked a good glass of champagne.
It was too dry for Juley, poor old soul, she had no
palate. As to Hatty Chessman! The thought
of this old friend caused a cloud of thought to obscure
the perfect glassiness of his eyes: He shouldn’t
wonder if she drank half a bottle!

But in thinking of his remaining guest, an expression
like that of a cat who is just going to purr stole
over his old face: Mrs. Soames! She mightn’t
take much, but she would appreciate what she drank;
it was a pleasure to give her good wine! A pretty
woman—­and sympathetic to him!

The thought of her was like champagne itself!
A pleasure to give a good wine to a young woman who
looked so well, who knew how to dress, with charming
manners, quite distinguished—­a pleasure
to entertain her. Between the points of his collar
he gave his head the first small, painful oscillation
of the evening.

“Adolf!” he said. “Put in
another bottle.”

He himself might drink a good deal, for, thanks to
that prescription of Blight’s, he found himself
extremely well, and he had been careful to take no
lunch. He had not felt so well for weeks.
Puffing out his lower lip, he gave his last instructions:

“Adolf, the least touch of the West India when
you come to the ham.”

Passing into the anteroom, he sat down on the edge
of a chair, with his knees apart; and his tall, bulky
form was wrapped at once in an expectant, strange,
primeval immobility. He was ready to rise at
a moment’s notice. He had not given a
dinner-party for months. This dinner in honour
of June’s engagement had seemed a bore at first
(among Forsytes the custom of solemnizing engagements
by feasts was religiously observed), but the labours
of sending invitations and ordering the repast over,
he felt pleasantly stimulated.

Page 28

And thus sitting, a watch in his hand, fat, and smooth,
and golden, like a flattened globe of butter, he thought
of nothing.

A long man, with side whiskers, who had once been
in Swithin’s service, but was now a greengrocer,
entered and proclaimed:

“Mrs. Chessman, Mrs. Septimus Small!”

Two ladies advanced. The one in front, habited
entirely in red, had large, settled patches of the
same colour in her cheeks, and a hard, dashing eye.
She walked at Swithin, holding out a hand cased in
a long, primrose-coloured glove:

“Well! Swithin,” she said, “I
haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?
Why, my dear boy, how stout you’re getting!”

The fixity of Swithin’s eye alone betrayed emotion.
A dumb and grumbling anger swelled his bosom.
It was vulgar to be stout, to talk of being stout;
he had a chest, nothing more. Turning to his
sister, he grasped her hand, and said in a tone of
command:

“Well, Juley.”

Mrs. Septimus Small was the tallest of the four sisters;
her good, round old face had gone a little sour; an
innumerable pout clung all over it, as if it had been
encased in an iron wire mask up to that evening, which,
being suddenly removed, left little rolls of mutinous
flesh all over her countenance. Even her eyes
were pouting. It was thus that she recorded
her permanent resentment at the loss of Septimus Small.

She had quite a reputation for saying the wrong thing,
and, tenacious like all her breed, she would hold
to it when she had said it, and add to it another
wrong thing, and so on. With the decease of her
husband the family tenacity, the family matter-of-factness,
had gone sterile within her. A great talker,
when allowed, she would converse without the faintest
animation for hours together, relating, with epic monotony,
the innumerable occasions on which Fortune had misused
her; nor did she ever perceive that her hearers sympathized
with Fortune, for her heart was kind.

Having sat, poor soul, long by the bedside of Small
(a man of poor constitution), she had acquired, the
habit, and there were countless subsequent occasions
when she had sat immense periods of time to amuse
sick people, children, and other helpless persons,
and she could never divest herself of the feeling
that the world was the most ungrateful place anybody
could live in. Sunday after Sunday she sat at
the feet of that extremely witty preacher, the Rev.
Thomas Scoles, who exercised a great influence over
her; but she succeeded in convincing everybody that
even this was a misfortune. She had passed into
a proverb in the family, and when anybody was observed
to be peculiarly distressing, he was known as a regular
‘Juley.’ The habit of her mind would
have killed anybody but a Forsyte at forty; but she
was seventy-two, and had never looked better.
And one felt that there were capacities for enjoyment
about her which might yet come out. She owned
three canaries, the cat Tommy, and half a parrot—­in
common with her sister Hester;—­and these
poor creatures (kept carefully out of Timothy’s
way—­he was nervous about animals), unlike
human beings, recognising that she could not help being
blighted, attached themselves to her passionately.

Page 29

She was sombrely magnificent this evening in black
bombazine, with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle,
and crowned with a black velvet ribbon round the base
of her thin throat; black and mauve for evening wear
was esteemed very chaste by nearly every Forsyte.

Pouting at Swithin, she said:

“Ann has been asking for you. You haven’t
been near us for an age!”

Swithin put his thumbs within the armholes of his
waistcoat, and replied:

“Ann’s getting very shaky; she ought to
have a doctor!”

“Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Forsyte!”

Nicholas Forsyte, cocking his rectangular eyebrows,
wore a smile. He had succeeded during the day
in bringing to fruition a scheme for the employment
of a tribe from Upper India in the gold-mines of Ceylon.
A pet plan, carried at last in the teeth of great
difficulties—­he was justly pleased.
It would double the output of his mines, and, as he
had often forcibly argued, all experience tended to
show that a man must die; and whether he died of a
miserable old age in his own country, or prematurely
of damp in the bottom of a foreign mine, was surely
of little consequence, provided that by a change in
his mode of life he benefited the British Empire.

His ability was undoubted. Raising his broken
nose towards his listener, he would add:

“For want of a few hundred of these fellows
we haven’t paid a dividend for years, and look
at the price of the shares. I can’t get
ten shillings for them.”

He had been at Yarmouth, too, and had come back feeling
that he had added at least ten years to his own life.
He grasped Swithin’s hand, exclaiming in a
jocular voice:

His hand enclosed Irene’s, and his eyes swelled.
She was a pretty woman—­a little too pale,
but her figure, her eyes, her teeth! Too good
for that chap Soames!

The gods had given Irene dark brown eyes and golden
hair, that strange combination, provocative of men’s
glances, which is said to be the mark of a weak character.
And the full, soft pallor of her neck and shoulders,
above a gold-coloured frock, gave to her personality
an alluring strangeness.

Soames stood behind, his eyes fastened on his wife’s
neck. The hands of Swithin’s watch, which
he still held open in his hand, had left eight behind;
it was half an hour beyond his dinner-time—­he
had had no lunch—­and a strange primeval
impatience surged up within him.

“It’s not like Jolyon to be late!”
he said to Irene, with uncontrollable vexation.
“I suppose it’ll be June keeping him!”

“People in love are always late,” she
answered.

Page 30

Swithin stared at her; a dusky orange dyed his cheeks.

“They’ve no business to be. Some
fashionable nonsense!”

And behind this outburst the inarticulate violence
of primitive generations seemed to mutter and grumble.

“Tell me what you think of my new star, Uncle
Swithin,” said Irene softly.

Among the lace in the bosom of her dress was shining
a five-pointed star, made of eleven diamonds.
Swithin looked at the star. He had a pretty
taste in stones; no question could have been more sympathetically
devised to distract his attention.

“Who gave you that?” he asked.

“Soames.”

There was no change in her face, but Swithin’s
pale eyes bulged as though he might suddenly have
been afflicted with insight.

“I dare say you’re dull at home,”
he said. “Any day you like to come and
dine with me, I’ll give you as good a bottle
of wine as you’ll get in London.”

“Miss June Forsyte—­Mr. Jolyon Forsyte!...
Mr. Boswainey!...”

Swithin moved his arm, and said in a rumbling voice:

“Dinner, now—­dinner!”

He took in Irene, on the ground that he had not entertained
her since she was a bride. June was the portion
of Bosinney, who was placed between Irene and his
fiancee. On the other side of June was James
with Mrs. Nicholas, then old Jolyon with Mrs. James,
Nicholas with Hatty Chessman, Soames with Mrs. Small,
completing, the circle to Swithin again.

Family dinners of the Forsytes observe certain traditions.
There are, for instance, no hors d’oeuvre.
The reason for this is unknown. Theory among
the younger members traces it to the disgraceful price
of oysters; it is more probably due to a desire to
come to the point, to a good practical sense deciding
at once that hors d’oeuvre are but poor things.
The Jameses alone, unable to withstand a custom almost
universal in Park Lane, are now and then unfaithful.

A silent, almost morose, inattention to each other
succeeds to the subsidence into their seats, lasting
till well into the first entree, but interspersed
with remarks such as, “Tom’s bad again;
I can’t tell what’s the matter with him!”
“I suppose Ann doesn’t come down in the
mornings?”—­“What’s the
name of your doctor, Fanny?” “Stubbs?”
“He’s a quack!”—­“Winifred?
She’s got too many children. Four, isn’t
it? She’s as thin as a lath!”—­“What
d’you give for this sherry, Swithin? Too
dry for me!”

With the second glass of champagne, a kind of hum
makes itself heard, which, when divested of casual
accessories and resolved into its primal element,
is found to be James telling a story, and this goes
on for a long time, encroaching sometimes even upon
what must universally be recognised as the crowning
point of a Forsyte feast—­’the saddle
of mutton.’

No Forsyte has given a dinner without providing a
saddle of mutton. There is something in its succulent
solidity which makes it suitable to people ‘of
a certain position.’ It is nourishing and
tasty; the sort of thing a man remembers eating.
It has a past and a future, like a deposit paid into
a bank; and it is something that can be argued about.

Page 31

Each branch of the family tenaciously held to a particular
locality—­old Jolyon swearing by Dartmoor,
James by Welsh, Swithin by Southdown, Nicholas maintaining
that people might sneer, but there was nothing like
New Zealand! As for Roger, the ‘original’
of the brothers, he had been obliged to invent a locality
of his own, and with an ingenuity worthy of a man
who had devised a new profession for his sons, he had
discovered a shop where they sold German; on being
remonstrated with, he had proved his point by producing
a butcher’s bill, which showed that he paid more
than any of the others. It was on this occasion
that old Jolyon, turning to June, had said in one
of his bursts of philosophy:

“You may depend upon it, they’re a cranky
lot, the Forsytes—­and you’ll find
it out, as you grow older!”

Timothy alone held apart, for though he ate saddle
of mutton heartily, he was, he said, afraid of it.

To anyone interested psychologically in Forsytes,
this great saddle-of-mutton trait is of prime importance;
not only does it illustrate their tenacity, both collectively
and as individuals, but it marks them as belonging
in fibre and instincts to that great class which believes
in nourishment and flavour, and yields to no sentimental
craving for beauty.

Younger members of the family indeed would have done
without a joint altogether, preferring guinea-fowl,
or lobster salad—­something which appealed
to the imagination, and had less nourishment—­but
these were females; or, if not, had been corrupted
by their wives, or by mothers, who having been forced
to eat saddle of mutton throughout their married lives,
had passed a secret hostility towards it into the fibre
of their sons.

The great saddle-of-mutton controversy at an end,
a Tewkesbury ham commenced, together with the least
touch of West Indian—­Swithin was so long
over this course that he caused a block in the progress
of the dinner. To devote himself to it with
better heart, he paused in his conversation.

From his seat by Mrs. Septimus Small Soames was watching.
He had a reason of his own connected with a pet building
scheme, for observing Bosinney. The architect
might do for his purpose; he looked clever, as he
sat leaning back in his chair, moodily making little
ramparts with bread-crumbs. Soames noted his
dress clothes to be well cut, but too small, as though
made many years ago.

He saw him turn to Irene and say something and her
face sparkle as he often saw it sparkle at other people—­never
at himself. He tried to catch what they were
saying, but Aunt Juley was speaking.

Hadn’t that always seemed very extraordinary
to Soames? Only last Sunday dear Mr. Scole,
had been so witty in his sermon, so sarcastic, “For
what,” he had said, “shall it profit a
man if he gain his own soul, but lose all his property?”
That, he had said, was the motto of the middle-class;
now, what had he meant by that? Of course, it
might be what middle-class people believed—­she
didn’t know; what did Soames think?

Page 32

He answered abstractedly: “How should I
know? Scoles is a humbug, though, isn’t
he?” For Bosinney was looking round the table,
as if pointing out the peculiarities of the guests,
and Soames wondered what he was saying. By her
smile Irene was evidently agreeing with his remarks.
She seemed always to agree with other people.

Her eyes were turned on himself; Soames dropped his
glance at once. The smile had died off her lips.

A humbug? But what did Soames mean? If
Mr. Scoles was a humbug, a clergyman—­then
anybody might be—­it was frightful!

“Well, and so they are!” said Soames.

During Aunt Juley’s momentary and horrified
silence he caught some words of Irene’s that
sounded like: ‘Abandon hope, all ye who
enter here!’

But Swithin had finished his ham.

“Where do you go for your mushrooms?”
he was saying to Irene in a voice like a courtier’s;
“you ought to go to Smileybob’s—­he’ll
give ’em you fresh. These little men,
they won’t take the trouble!”

Irene turned to answer him, and Soames saw Bosinney
watching her and smiling to himself. A curious
smile the fellow had. A half-simple arrangement,
like a child who smiles when he is pleased. As
for George’s nickname—­’The
Buccaneer’—­he did not think much of
that. And, seeing Bosinney turn to June, Soames
smiled too, but sardonically—­he did not
like June, who was not looking too pleased.

This was not surprising, for she had just held the
following conversation with James:

“I stayed on the river on my way home, Uncle
James, and saw a beautiful site for a house.”

James, a slow and thorough eater, stopped the process
of mastication.

“Eh?” he said. “Now, where
was that?”

“Close to Pangbourne.”

James placed a piece of ham in his mouth, and June
waited.

“I suppose you wouldn’t know whether the
land about there was freehold?” he asked at
last. “You wouldn’t know anything
about the price of land about there?”

“Yes,” said June; “I made inquiries.”
Her little resolute face under its copper crown was
suspiciously eager and aglow.

James regarded her with the air of an inquisitor.

“What? You’re not thinking of buying
land!” he ejaculated, dropping his fork.

June was greatly encouraged by his interest.
It had long been her pet plan that her uncles should
benefit themselves and Bosinney by building country-houses.

“Of course not,” she said. “I
thought it would be such a splendid place for—­you
or—­someone to build a country-house!”

James looked at her sideways, and placed a second
piece of ham in his mouth....

“Land ought to be very dear about there,”
he said.

What June had taken for personal interest was only
the impersonal excitement of every Forsyte who hears
of something eligible in danger of passing into other
hands. But she refused to see the disappearance
of her chance, and continued to press her point.

Page 33

“You ought to go into the country, Uncle James.
I wish I had a lot of money, I wouldn’t live
another day in London.”

James was stirred to the depths of his long thin figure;
he had no idea his niece held such downright views.

“Why don’t you go into the country?”
repeated June; “it would do you a lot of good.”

“Why?” began James in a fluster.
“Buying land—­what good d’you
suppose I can do buying land, building houses?—­I
couldn’t get four per cent. for my money!”

“What does that matter? You’d get
fresh air.”

“Fresh air!” exclaimed James; “what
should I do with fresh air,”

“I should have thought anybody liked to have
fresh air,” said June scornfully.

James wiped his napkin all over his mouth.

“You don’t know the value of money,”
he said, avoiding her eye.

“No! and I hope I never shall!” and, biting
her lip with inexpressible mortification, poor June
was silent.

Why were her own relations so rich, and Phil never
knew where the money was coming from for to-morrow’s
tobacco. Why couldn’t they do something
for him? But they were so selfish. Why
couldn’t they build country-houses? She
had all that naive dogmatism which is so pathetic,
and sometimes achieves such great results. Bosinney,
to whom she turned in her discomfiture, was talking
to Irene, and a chill fell on June’s spirit.
Her eyes grew steady with anger, like old Jolyon’s
when his will was crossed.

James, too, was much disturbed. He felt as though
someone had threatened his right to invest his money
at five per cent. Jolyon had spoiled her.
None of his girls would have said such a thing.
James had always been exceedingly liberal to his
children, and the consciousness of this made him feel
it all the more deeply. He trifled moodily with
his strawberries, then, deluging them with cream,
he ate them quickly; they, at all events, should not
escape him.

No wonder he was upset. Engaged for fifty-four
years (he had been admitted a solicitor on the earliest
day sanctioned by the law) in arranging mortgages,
preserving investments at a dead level of high and
safe interest, conducting negotiations on the principle
of securing the utmost possible out of other people
compatible with safety to his clients and himself,
in calculations as to the exact pecuniary possibilities
of all the relations of life, he had come at last
to think purely in terms of money. Money was
now his light, his medium for seeing, that without
which he was really unable to see, really not cognisant
of phenomena; and to have this thing, “I hope
I shall never know the value of money!” said
to his face, saddened and exasperated him. He
knew it to be nonsense, or it would have frightened
him. What was the world coming to! Suddenly
recollecting the story of young Jolyon, however, he
felt a little comforted, for what could you expect
with a father like that! This turned his thoughts
into a channel still less pleasant. What was
all this talk about Soames and Irene?

Page 34

As in all self-respecting families, an emporium had
been established where family secrets were bartered,
and family stock priced. It was known on Forsyte
’Change that Irene regretted her marriage.
Her regret was disapproved of. She ought to
have known her own mind; no dependable woman made
these mistakes.

James reflected sourly that they had a nice house
(rather small) in an excellent position, no children,
and no money troubles. Soames was reserved about
his affairs, but he must be getting a very warm man.
He had a capital income from the business—­for
Soames, like his father, was a member of that well-known
firm of solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte—­and
had always been very careful. He had done quite
unusually well with some mortgages he had taken up,
too—­a little timely foreclosure—­most
lucky hits!

There was no reason why Irene should not be happy,
yet they said she’d been asking for a separate
room. He knew where that ended. It wasn’t
as if Soames drank.

James looked at his daughter-in-law. That unseen
glance of his was cold and dubious. Appeal and
fear were in it, and a sense of personal grievance.
Why should he be worried like this? It was very
likely all nonsense; women were funny things!
They exaggerated so, you didn’t know what to
believe; and then, nobody told him anything, he had
to find out everything for himself. Again he
looked furtively at Irene, and across from her to
Soames. The latter, listening to Aunt Juley,
was looking up, under his brows in the direction of
Bosinney.

‘He’s fond of her, I know,’ thought
James. ’Look at the way he’s always
giving her things.’

And the extraordinary unreasonableness of her disaffection
struck him with increased force.

It was a pity, too, she was a taking little thing,
and he, James, would be really quite fond of her if
she’d only let him. She had taken up lately
with June; that was doing her no good, that was certainly
doing her no good. She was getting to have opinions
of her own. He didn’t know what she wanted
with anything of the sort. She’d a good
home, and everything she could wish for. He
felt that her friends ought to be chosen for her.
To go on like this was dangerous.

June, indeed, with her habit of championing the unfortunate,
had dragged from Irene a confession, and, in return,
had preached the necessity of facing the evil, by
separation, if need be. But in the face of these
exhortations, Irene had kept a brooding silence, as
though she found terrible the thought of this struggle
carried through in cold blood. He would never
give her up, she had said to June.

“Who cares?” June cried; “let him
do what he likes—­you’ve only to stick
to it!” And she had not scrupled to say something
of this sort at Timothy’s; James, when he heard
of it, had felt a natural indignation and horror.

Page 35

What if Irene were to take it into her head to—­he
could hardly frame the thought—­to leave
Soames? But he felt this thought so unbearable
that he at once put it away; the shady visions it
conjured up, the sound of family tongues buzzing in
his ears, the horror of the conspicuous happening
so close to him, to one of his own children!
Luckily, she had no money—­a beggarly fifty
pound a year! And he thought of the deceased
Heron, who had had nothing to leave her, with contempt.
Brooding over his glass, his long legs twisted under
the table, he quite omitted to rise when the ladies
left the room. He would have to speak to Soames
—­would have to put him on his guard; they
could not go on like this, now that such a contingency
had occurred to him. And he noticed with sour
disfavour that June had left her wine-glasses full
of wine.

‘That little, thing’s at the bottom of
it all,’ he mused; ’Irene’d never
have thought of it herself.’ James was
a man of imagination.

The voice of Swithin roused him from his reverie.

“I gave four hundred pounds for it,” he
was saying. “Of course it’s a regular
work of art.”

“Four hundred! H’m! that’s
a lot of money!” chimed in Nicholas.

The object alluded to was an elaborate group of statuary
in Italian marble, which, placed upon a lofty stand
(also of marble), diffused an atmosphere of culture
throughout the room. The subsidiary figures, of
which there were six, female, nude, and of highly ornate
workmanship, were all pointing towards the central
figure, also nude, and female, who was pointing at
herself; and all this gave the observer a very pleasant
sense of her extreme value. Aunt Juley, nearly
opposite, had had the greatest difficulty in not looking
at it all the evening.

Old Jolyon spoke; it was he who had started the discussion.

“Four hundred fiddlesticks! Don’t
tell me you gave four hundred for that?”

Between the points of his collar Swithin’s chin
made the second painful oscillatory movement of the
evening.

“Four-hundred-pounds, of English money; not
a farthing less. I don’t regret it.
It’s not common English—­it’s
genuine modern Italian!”

Soames raised the corner of his lip in a smile, and
looked across at Bosinney. The architect was
grinning behind the fumes of his cigarette. Now,
indeed, he looked more like a buccaneer.

“There’s a lot of work about it,”
remarked James hastily, who was really moved by the
size of the group. “It’d sell well
at Jobson’s.”

“Ah!” chimed in Nicholas suddenly, “poor,
seedy-lookin’ chaps, these artists; it’s
a wonder to me how they live. Now, there’s
young Flageoletti, that Fanny and the girls are always
hav’in’ in, to play the fiddle; if he
makes a hundred a year it’s as much as ever he
does!”

Page 36

James shook his head. “Ah!” he said,
“I don’t know how they live!”

Old Jolyon had risen, and, cigar in mouth, went to
inspect the group at close quarters.

“Wouldn’t have given two for it!”
he pronounced at last.

Soames saw his father and Nicholas glance at each
other anxiously; and, on the other side of Swithin,
Bosinney, still shrouded in smoke.

‘I wonder what he thinks of it?’ thought
Soames, who knew well enough that this group was hopelessly
vieux jeu; hopelessly of the last generation.
There was no longer any sale at Jobson’s for
such works of art.

Swithin’s answer came at last. “You
never knew anything about a statue. You’ve
got your pictures, and that’s all!”

Old Jolyon walked back to his seat, puffing his cigar.
It was not likely that he was going to be drawn into
an argument with an obstinate beggar like Swithin,
pig-headed as a mule, who had never known a statue
from a—–­straw hat.

“Stucco!” was all he said.

It had long been physically impossible for Swithin
to start; his fist came down on the table.

“Stucco! I should like to see anything
you’ve got in your house half as good!”

And behind his speech seemed to sound again that rumbling
violence of primitive generations.

It was James who saved the situation.

“Now, what do you say, Mr. Bosinney? You’re
an architect; you ought to know all about statues
and things!”

Every eye was turned upon Bosinney; all waited with
a strange, suspicious look for his answer.

And Soames, speaking for the first time, asked:

“Yes, Bosinney, what do you say?”

Bosinney replied coolly:

“The work is a remarkable one.”

His words were addressed to Swithin, his eyes smiled
slyly at old Jolyon; only Soames remained unsatisfied.

“Remarkable for what?”

“For its naivete”

The answer was followed by an impressive silence;
Swithin alone was not sure whether a compliment was
intended.

CHAPTER IV

PROJECTION OF THE HOUSE

Soames Forsyte walked out of his green-painted front
door three days after the dinner at Swithin’s,
and looking back from across the Square, confirmed
his impression that the house wanted painting.

He had left his wife sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room,
her hands crossed in her lap, manifestly waiting for
him to go out. This was not unusual. It
happened, in fact, every day.

He could not understand what she found wrong with
him. It was not as if he drank! Did he
run into debt, or gamble, or swear; was he violent;
were his friends rackety; did he stay out at night?
On the contrary.

The profound, subdued aversion which he felt in his
wife was a mystery to him, and a source of the most
terrible irritation. That she had made a mistake,
and did not love him, had tried to love him and could
not love him, was obviously no reason.

Page 37

He that could imagine so outlandish a cause for his
wife’s not getting on with him was certainly
no Forsyte.

Soames was forced, therefore, to set the blame entirely
down to his wife. He had never met a woman so
capable of inspiring affection. They could not
go anywhere without his seeing how all the men were
attracted by her; their looks, manners, voices, betrayed
it; her behaviour under this attention had been beyond
reproach. That she was one of those women—­not
too common in the Anglo-Saxon race—­born
to be loved and to love, who when not loving are not
living, had certainly never even occurred to him.
Her power of attraction, he regarded as part of her
value as his property; but it made him, indeed, suspect
that she could give as well as receive; and she gave
him nothing! ‘Then why did she marry me?’
was his continual thought. He had, forgotten
his courtship; that year and a half when he had besieged
and lain in wait for her, devising schemes for her
entertainment, giving her presents, proposing to her
periodically, and keeping her other admirers away
with his perpetual presence. He had forgotten
the day when, adroitly taking advantage of an acute
phase of her dislike to her home surroundings, he
crowned his labours with success. If he remembered
anything, it was the dainty capriciousness with which
the gold-haired, dark-eyed girl had treated him.
He certainly did not remember the look on her face—­strange,
passive, appealing—­when suddenly one day
she had yielded, and said that she would marry him.

It had been one of those real devoted wooings which
books and people praise, when the lover is at length
rewarded for hammering the iron till it is malleable,
and all must be happy ever after as the wedding bells.

Soames walked eastwards, mousing doggedly along on
the shady side.

The house wanted doing, up, unless he decided to move
into the country, and build.

For the hundredth time that month he turned over this
problem. There was no use in rushing into things!
He was very comfortably off, with an increasing income
getting on for three thousand a year; but his invested
capital was not perhaps so large as his father believed—­James
had a tendency to expect that his children should
be better off than they were. ‘I can manage
eight thousand easily enough,’ he thought, ’without
calling in either Robertson’s or Nicholl’s.’

He had stopped to look in at a picture shop, for Soames
was an ‘amateur’ of pictures, and had
a little-room in No. 62, Montpellier Square, full
of canvases, stacked against the wall, which he had
no room to hang. He brought them home with him
on his way back from the City, generally after dark,
and would enter this room on Sunday afternoons, to
spend hours turning the pictures to the light, examining
the marks on their backs, and occasionally making
notes.

They were nearly all landscapes with figures in the
foreground, a sign of some mysterious revolt against
London, its tall houses, its interminable streets,
where his life and the lives of his breed and class
were passed. Every now and then he would take
one or two pictures away with him in a cab, and stop
at Jobson’s on his way into the City.

Page 38

He rarely showed them to anyone; Irene, whose opinion
he secretly respected and perhaps for that reason
never solicited, had only been into the room on rare
occasions, in discharge of some wifely duty.
She was not asked to look at the pictures, and she
never did. To Soames this was another grievance.
He hated that pride of hers, and secretly dreaded
it.

In the plate-glass window of the picture shop his
image stood and looked at him.

His sleek hair under the brim of the tall hat had
a sheen like the hat itself; his cheeks, pale and
flat, the line of his clean-shaven lips, his firm
chin with its greyish shaven tinge, and the buttoned
strictness of his black cut-away coat, conveyed an
appearance of reserve and secrecy, of imperturbable,
enforced composure; but his eyes, cold,—­grey,
strained—­looking, with a line in the brow
between them, examined him wistfully, as if they knew
of a secret weakness.

He noted the subjects of the pictures, the names of
the painters, made a calculation of their values,
but without the satisfaction he usually derived from
this inward appraisement, and walked on.

No. 62 would do well enough for another year, if he
decided to build! The times were good for building,
money had not been so dear for years; and the site
he had seen at Robin Hill, when he had gone down there
in the spring to inspect the Nicholl mortgage—­what
could be better! Within twelve miles of Hyde
Park Corner, the value of the land certain to go up,
would always fetch more than he gave for it; so that
a house, if built in really good style, was a first-class
investment.

The notion of being the one member of his family with
a country house weighed but little with him; for to
a true Forsyte, sentiment, even the sentiment of social
position, was a luxury only to be indulged in after
his appetite for more material pleasure had been satisfied.

To get Irene out of London, away from opportunities
of going about and seeing people, away from her friends
and those who put ideas into her head! That
was the thing! She was too thick with June!
June disliked him. He returned the sentiment.
They were of the same blood.

It would be everything to get Irene out of town.
The house would please her she would enjoy messing
about with the decoration, she was very artistic!

The house must be in good style, something that would
always be certain to command a price, something unique,
like that last house of Parkes, which had a tower;
but Parkes had himself said that his architect was
ruinous. You never knew where you were with those
fellows; if they had a name they ran you into no end
of expense and were conceited into the bargain.

And a common architect was no good—­the
memory of Parkes’ tower precluded the employment
of a common architect:

This was why he had thought of Bosinney. Since
the dinner at Swithin’s he had made enquiries,
the result of which had been meagre, but encouraging:
“One of the new school.”

Page 39

“Clever?”

“As clever as you like—­a bit—­a
bit up in the air!”

He had not been able to discover what houses Bosinney
had built, nor what his charges were. The impression
he gathered was that he would be able to make his
own terms. The more he reflected on the idea,
the more he liked it. It would be keeping the
thing in the family, with Forsytes almost an instinct;
and he would be able to get ‘favoured-nation,’
if not nominal terms—­only fair, considering
the chance to Bosinney of displaying his talents,
for this house must be no common edifice.

Soames reflected complacently on the work it would
be sure to bring the young man; for, like every Forsyte,
he could be a thorough optimist when there was anything
to be had out of it.

Bosinney’s office was in Sloane Street, close
at, hand, so that he would be able to keep his eye
continually on the plans.

Again, Irene would not be to likely to object to leave
London if her greatest friend’s lover were given
the job. June’s marriage might depend
on it. Irene could not decently stand in the
way of June’s marriage; she would never do that,
he knew her too well. And June would be pleased;
of this he saw the advantage.

Bosinney looked clever, but he had also—­and—­it
was one of his great attractions—­an air
as if he did not quite know on which side his bread
were buttered; he should be easy to deal with in money
matters. Soames made this reflection in no defrauding
spirit; it was the natural attitude of his mind—­of
the mind of any good business man—­of all
those thousands of good business men through whom
he was threading his way up Ludgate Hill.

Thus he fulfilled the inscrutable laws of his great
class—­of human nature itself—­when
he reflected, with a sense of comfort, that Bosinney
would be easy to deal with in money matters.

While he elbowed his way on, his eyes, which he usually
kept fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted
upwards by the dome of St. Paul’s. It
had a peculiar fascination for him, that old dome,
and not once, but twice or three times a week, would
he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and
stop in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing
the names and epitaphs on the monuments. The
attraction for him of this great church was inexplicable,
unless it enabled him to concentrate his thoughts
on the business of the day. If any affair of
particular moment, or demanding peculiar acuteness,
was weighing on his mind, he invariably went in, to
wander with mouse-like attention from epitaph to epitaph.
Then retiring in the same noiseless way, he would
hold steadily on up Cheapside, a thought more of dogged
purpose in his gait, as though he had seen something
which he had made up his mind to buy.

He went in this morning, but, instead of stealing
from monument to monument, turned his eyes upwards
to the columns and spacings of the walls, and remained
motionless.

Page 40

His uplifted face, with the awed and wistful look
which faces take on themselves in church, was whitened
to a chalky hue in the vast building. His gloved
hands were clasped in front over the handle of his
umbrella. He lifted them. Some sacred inspiration
perhaps had come to him.

‘Yes,’ he thought, ’I must have
room to hang my pictures.

That evening, on his return from the City, he called
at Bosinney’s office. He found the architect
in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a pipe, and ruling off
lines on a plan. Soames refused a drink, and
came at once to the point.

“If you’ve nothing better to do on Sunday,
come down with me to Robin Hill, and give me your
opinion on a building site.”

“Are you going to build?”

“Perhaps,” said Soames; “but don’t
speak of it. I just want your opinion.”

“Quite so,” said the architect.

Soames peered about the room.

“You’re rather high up here,” he
remarked.

Any information he could gather about the nature and
scope of Bosinney’s business would be all to
the good.

“It does well enough for me so far,” answered
the architect. “You’re accustomed
to the swells.”

He knocked out his pipe, but replaced it empty between
his teeth; it assisted him perhaps to carry on the
conversation. Soames noted a hollow in each
cheek, made as it were by suction.

“What do you pay for an office like this?”
said he.

“Fifty too much,” replied Bosinney.

This answer impressed Soames favourably.

“I suppose it is dear,” he said.
“I’ll call for you—­on Sunday
about eleven.”

The following Sunday therefore he called for Bosinney
in a hansom, and drove him to the station. On
arriving at Robin Hill, they found no cab, and started
to walk the mile and a half to the site.

It was the 1st of August—­a perfect day,
with a burning sun and cloudless sky—­and
in the straight, narrow road leading up the hill their
feet kicked up a yellow dust.

“Gravel soil,” remarked Soames, and sideways
he glanced at the coat Bosinney wore. Into the
side-pockets of this coat were thrust bundles of papers,
and under one arm was carried a queer-looking stick.
Soames noted these and other peculiarities.

No one but a clever man, or, indeed, a buccaneer,
would have taken such liberties with his appearance;
and though these eccentricities were revolting to
Soames, he derived a certain satisfaction from them,
as evidence of qualities by which he must inevitably
profit. If the fellow could build houses, what
did his clothes matter?

“I told you,” he said, “that I want
this house to be a surprise, so don’t say anything
about it. I never talk of my affairs until they’re
carried through.”

Page 41

This feeling had long been at the—­bottom
of Soames’s heart; he had never, however, put
it into words.

“Oh!” he Muttered, “so you’re
beginning to....” He stopped, but added,
with an uncontrollable burst of spite: “June’s
got a temper of her own—­always had.”

“A temper’s not a bad thing in an angel.”

Soames had never called Irene an angel. He could
not so have violated his best instincts, letting other
people into the secret of her value, and giving himself
away. He made no reply.

They had struck into a half-made road across a warren.
A cart-track led at right-angles to a gravel pit,
beyond which the chimneys of a cottage rose amongst
a clump of trees at the border of a thick wood.
Tussocks of feathery grass covered the rough surface
of the ground, and out of these the larks soared into
the hate of sunshine. On the far horizon, over
a countless succession of fields and hedges, rose
a line of downs.

Soames led till they had crossed to the far side,
and there he stopped. It was the chosen site;
but now that he was about to divulge the spot to another
he had become uneasy.

“The agent lives in that cottage,” he
said; “he’ll give us some lunch—­we’d
better have lunch before we go into this matter.”

He again took the lead to the cottage, where the agent,
a tall man named Oliver, with a heavy face and grizzled
beard, welcomed them. During lunch, which Soames
hardly touched, he kept looking at Bosinney, and once
or twice passed his silk handkerchief stealthily over
his forehead. The meal came to an end at last,
and Bosinney rose.

“I dare say you’ve got business to talk
over,” he said; “I’ll just go and
nose about a bit.” Without waiting for a
reply he strolled out.

Soames was solicitor to this estate, and he spent
nearly an hour in the agent’s company, looking
at ground-plans and discussing the Nicholl and other
mortgages; it was as it were by an afterthought that
he brought up the question of the building site.

“Your people,” he said, “ought to
come down in their price to me, considering that I
shall be the first to build.”

Oliver shook his head.

The site you’ve fixed on, Sir, he said, “is
the cheapest we’ve got. Sites at the top
of the slope are dearer by a good bit.”

“Mind,” said Soames, “I’ve
not decided; it’s quite possible I shan’t
build at all. The ground rent’s very high.”

“Well, Mr. Forsyte, I shall be sorry if you
go off, and I think you’ll make a mistake, Sir.
There’s not a bit of land near London with such
a view as this, nor one that’s cheaper, all
things considered; we’ve only to advertise,
to get a mob of people after it.”

They looked at each other. Their faces said
very plainly: ’I respect you as a man of
business; and you can’t expect me to believe
a word you say.’

Well, repeated Soames, “I haven’t made
up my mind; the thing will very likely go off!”
With these words, taking up his umbrella, he put his
chilly hand into the agent’s, withdrew it without
the faintest pressure, and went out into the sun.

Page 42

He walked slowly back towards the site in deep thought.
His instinct told him that what the agent had said
was true. A cheap site. And the beauty
of it was, that he knew the agent did not really think
it cheap; so that his own intuitive knowledge was
a victory over the agent’s.

‘Cheap or not, I mean to have it,’ he
thought.

The larks sprang up in front of his feet, the air
was full of butterflies, a sweet fragrance rose from
the wild grasses. The sappy scent of the bracken
stole forth from the wood, where, hidden in the depths,
pigeons were cooing, and from afar on the warm breeze,
came the rhythmic chiming of church bells.

Soames walked with his eyes on the ground, his lips
opening and closing as though in anticipation of a
delicious morsel. But when he arrived at the
site, Bosinney was nowhere to be seen. After waiting
some little time, he crossed the warren in the direction
of the slope. He would have shouted, but dreaded
the sound of his voice.

The warren was as lonely as a prairie, its silence
only broken by the rustle of rabbits bolting to their
holes, and the song of the larks.

Soames, the pioneer-leader of the great Forsyte army
advancing to the civilization of this wilderness,
felt his spirit daunted by the loneliness, by the
invisible singing, and the hot, sweet air. He
had begun to retrace his steps when he at last caught
sight of Bosinney.

The architect was sprawling under a large oak tree,
whose trunk, with a huge spread of bough and foliage,
ragged with age, stood on the verge of the rise.

Soames had to touch him on the shoulder before he
looked up.

“Hallo! Forsyte,” he said, “I’ve
found the very place for your house! Look here!”

Soames stood and looked, then he said, coldly:

“You may be very clever, but this site will
cost me half as much again.”

“Hang the cost, man. Look at the view!”

Almost from their feet stretched ripe corn, dipping
to a small dark copse beyond. A plain of fields
and hedges spread to the distant grey-bluedowns.
In a silver streak to the right could be seen the
line of the river.

The sky was so blue, and the sun so bright, that an
eternal summer seemed to reign over this prospect.
Thistledown floated round them, enraptured by the
serenity, of the ether. The heat danced over
the corn, and, pervading all, was a soft, insensible
hum, like the murmur of bright minutes holding revel
between earth and heaven.

Soames looked. In spite of himself, something
swelled in his breast. To live here in sight
of all this, to be able to point it out to his friends,
to talk of it, to possess it! His cheeks flushed.
The warmth, the radiance, the glow, were sinking
into his senses as, four years before, Irene’s
beauty had sunk into his senses and made him long for
her. He stole a glance at Bosinney, whose eyes,
the eyes of the coachman’s ‘half-tame
leopard,’ seemed running wild over the landscape.
The sunlight had caught the promontories of the fellow’s
face, the bumpy cheekbones, the point of his chin,
the vertical ridges above his brow; and Soames watched
this rugged, enthusiastic, careless face with an unpleasant
feeling.

Page 43

A long, soft ripple of wind flowed over the corn,
and brought a puff of warm air into their faces.

“I could build you a teaser here,” said
Bosinney, breaking the silence at last.

“I dare say,” replied Soames, drily.
“You haven’t got to pay for it.”

“For about eight thousand I could build you
a palace.”

Soames had become very pale—­a struggle
was going on within him. He dropped his eyes,
and said stubbornly:

“I can’t afford it.”

And slowly, with his mousing walk, he led the way
back to the first site.

They spent some time there going into particulars
of the projected house, and then Soames returned to
the agent’s cottage.

He came out in about half an hour, and, joining Bosinney,
started for the station.

“Well,” he said, hardly opening his lips,
“I’ve taken that site of yours, after
all.”

And again he was silent, confusedly debating how it
was that this fellow, whom by habit he despised, should
have overborne his own decision.

CHAPTER V

A FORSYTE MENAGE

Like the enlightened thousands of his class and generation
in this great city of London, who no longer believe
in red velvet chairs, and know that groups of modern
Italian marble are ‘vieux jeu,’ Soames
Forsyte inhabited a house which did what it could.
It owned a copper door knocker of individual design,
windows which had been altered to open outwards, hanging
flower boxes filled with fuchsias, and at the back
(a great feature) a little court tiled with jade-green
tiles, and surrounded by pink hydrangeas in peacock-blue
tubs. Here, under a parchment-coloured Japanese
sunshade covering the whole end, inhabitants or visitors
could be screened from the eyes of the curious while
they drank tea and examined at their leisure the latest
of Soames’s little silver boxes.

The inner decoration favoured the First Empire and
William Morris. For its size, the house was
commodious; there were countless nooks resembling
birds’ nests, and little things made of silver
were deposited like eggs.

In this general perfection two kinds of fastidiousness
were at war. There lived here a mistress who
would have dwelt daintily on a desert island; a master
whose daintiness was, as it were, an investment, cultivated
by the owner for his advancement, in accordance with
the laws of competition. This competitive daintiness
had caused Soames in his Marlborough days to be the
first boy into white waistcoats in summer, and corduroy
waistcoats in winter, had prevented him from ever appearing
in public with his tie climbing up his collar, and
induced him to dust his patent leather boots before
a great multitude assembled on Speech Day to hear
him recite Moliere.

Skin-like immaculateness had grown over Soames, as
over many Londoners; impossible to conceive of him
with a hair out of place, a tie deviating one-eighth
of an inch from the perpendicular, a collar unglossed!
He would not have gone without a bath for worlds—­it
was the fashion to take baths; and how bitter was
his scorn of people who omitted them!

Page 44

But Irene could be imagined, like some nymph, bathing
in wayside streams, for the joy of the freshness and
of seeing her own fair body.

In this conflict throughout the house the woman had
gone to the wall. As in the struggle between
Saxon and Celt still going on within the nation, the
more impressionable and receptive temperament had had
forced on it a conventional superstructure.

Thus the house had acquired a close resemblance to
hundreds of other houses with the same high aspirations,
having become: ’That very charming little
house of the Soames Forsytes, quite individual, my
dear—­really elegant.’

For Soames Forsyte—­read James Peabody,
Thomas Atkins, or Emmanuel Spagnoletti, the name in
fact of any upper-middle class Englishman in London
with any pretensions to taste; and though the decoration
be different, the phrase is just.

On the evening of August 8, a week after the expedition
to Robin Hill, in the dining-room of this house—­’quite
individual, my dear—­really elegant’—­Soames
and Irene were seated at dinner. A hot dinner
on Sundays was a little distinguishing elegance common
to this house and many others. Early in married
life Soames had laid down the rule: ’The
servants must give us hot dinner on Sundays—­they’ve
nothing to do but play the concertina.’

The custom had produced no revolution. For—­to
Soames a rather deplorable sign—­servants
were devoted to Irene, who, in defiance of all safe
tradition, appeared to recognise their right to a share
in the weaknesses of human nature.

The happy pair were seated, not opposite each other,
but rectangularly, at the handsome rosewood table;
they dined without a cloth—­a distinguishing
elegance—­and so far had not spoken a word.

Soames liked to talk during dinner about business,
or what he had been buying, and so long as he talked
Irene’s silence did not distress him. This
evening he had found it impossible to talk. The
decision to build had been weighing on his mind all
the week, and he had made up his mind to tell her.

His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him
profoundly; she had no business to make him feel like
that—­a wife and a husband being one person.
She had not looked at him once since they sat down;
and he wondered what on earth she had been thinking
about all the time. It was hard, when a man
worked as he did, making money for her—­yes,
and with an ache in his heart—­that she
should sit there, looking—­looking as if
she saw the walls of the room closing in. It
was enough to make a man get up and leave the table.

The light from the rose-shaded lamp fell on her neck
and arms—­Soames liked her to dine in a
low dress, it gave him an inexpressible feeling of
superiority to the majority of his acquaintance, whose
wives were contented with their best high frocks or
with tea-gowns, when they dined at home. Under
that rosy light her amber-coloured hair and fair skin
made strange contrast with her dark brown eyes.

Page 45

Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table
with its deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses,
the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint silver furnishing;
could a man own anything prettier than the woman who
sat at it? Gratitude was no virtue among Forsytes,
who, competitive, and full of common-sense, had no
occasion for it; and Soames only experienced a sense
of exasperation amounting to pain, that he did not
own her as it was his right to own her, that he could
not, as by stretching out his hand to that rose, pluck
her and sniff the very secrets of her heart.

Out of his other property, out of all the things he
had collected, his silver, his pictures, his houses,
his investments, he got a secret and intimate feeling;
out of her he got none.

In this house of his there was writing on every wall.
His business-like temperament protested against a
mysterious warning that she was not made for him.
He had married this woman, conquered her, made her
his own, and it seemed to him contrary to the most
fundamental of all laws, the law of possession, that
he could do no more than own her body—­if
indeed he could do that, which he was beginning to
doubt. If any one had asked him if he wanted
to own her soul, the question would have seemed to
him both ridiculous and sentimental. But he
did so want, and the writing said he never would.

She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse; as
though terrified lest by word, motion, or sign she
might lead him to believe that she was fond of him;
and he asked himself: Must I always go on like
this?

Like most novel readers of his generation (and Soames
was a great novel reader), literature coloured his
view of life; and he had imbibed the belief that it
was only a question of time.

In the end the husband always gained the affection
of his wife. Even in those cases—­a
class of book he was not very fond of—­which
ended in tragedy, the wife always died with poignant
regrets on her lips, or if it were the husband who
died—­unpleasant thought—­threw
herself on his body in an agony of remorse.

He often took Irene to the theatre, instinctively
choosing the modern Society Plays with the modern
Society conjugal problem, so fortunately different
from any conjugal problem in real life. He found
that they too always ended in the same way, even when
there was a lover in the case. While he was watching
the play Soames often sympathized with the lover;
but before he reached home again, driving with Irene
in a hansom, he saw that this would not do, and he
was glad the play had ended as it had. There
was one class of husband that had just then come into
fashion, the strong, rather rough, but extremely sound
man, who was peculiarly successful at the end of the
play; with this person Soames was really not in sympathy,
and had it not been for his own position, would have
expressed his disgust with the fellow. But he
was so conscious of how vital to himself was the necessity
for being a successful, even a ‘strong,’
husband, that he never spoke of a distaste born perhaps
by the perverse processes of Nature out of a secret
fund of brutality in himself.

Page 46

But Irene’s silence this evening was exceptional.
He had never before seen such an expression on her
face. And since it is always the unusual which
alarms, Soames was alarmed. He ate his savoury,
and hurried the maid as she swept off the crumbs with
the silver sweeper. When she had left the room,
he filled his glass with wine and said:

“Anybody been here this afternoon?”

“June.”

“What did she want?” It was an axiom
with the Forsytes that people did not go anywhere
unless they wanted something. “Came to
talk about her lover, I suppose?”

Irene made no reply.

“It looks to me,” continued Soames, “as
if she were sweeter on him than he is on her.
She’s always following him about.”

Irene’s eyes made him feel uncomfortable.

“You’ve no business to say such a thing!”
she exclaimed.

“Why not? Anybody can see it.”

“They cannot. And if they could, it’s
disgraceful to say so.”

Soames’s composure gave way.

“You’re a pretty wife!” he said.
But secretly he wondered at the heat of her reply;
it was unlike her. “You’re cracked
about June! I can tell you one thing: now
that she has the Buccaneer in tow, she doesn’t
care twopence about you, and, you’ll find it
out. But you won’t see so much of her
in future; we’re going to live in the country.”

He had been glad to get his news out under cover of
this burst of irritation. He had expected a
cry of dismay; the silence with which his pronouncement
was received alarmed him.

“You don’t seem interested,” he
was obliged to add.

“I knew it already.”

He looked at her sharply.

“Who told you?”

“June.”

“How did she know?”

Irene did not answer. Baffled and uncomfortable,
he said:

“It’s a fine thing for Bosinney, it’ll
be the making of him. I suppose she’s
told you all about it?”

“Yes.”

There was another pause, and then Soames said:

“I suppose you don’t want to, go?”

Irene made no reply.

“Well, I can’t tell what you want.
You never seem contented here.”

“Have my wishes anything to do with it?”

She took the vase of roses and left the room.
Soames remained seated. Was it for this that
he had signed that contract? Was it for this
that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds?
Bosinney’s phrase came back to him: “Women
are the devil!”

But presently he grew calmer. It might have,
been worse. She might have flared up.
He had expected something more than this. It was
lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for
him. She must have wormed it out of Bosinney;
he might have known she would.

He lighted his cigarette. After all, Irene had
not made a scene! She would come round—­that
was the best of her; she was cold, but not sulky.
And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a lady-bird on
the shining table, he plunged into a reverie about
the house. It was no good worrying; he would
go and make it up presently. She would be sitting
out there in the dark, under the Japanese sunshade,
knitting. A beautiful, warm night....

Page 47

In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining
eyes, and the words: “Soames is a brick!
It’s splendid for Phil—­the very thing
for him!”

Irene’s face remaining dark and puzzled, she
went on:

“Your new house at Robin Hill, of course.
What? Don’t you know?”

Irene did not know.

“Oh! then, I suppose I oughtn’t to have
told you!” Looking impatiently at her friend,
she cried: “You look as if you didn’t
care. Don’t you see, it’s what I’ve’
been praying for—­the very chance he’s
been wanting all this time. Now you’ll
see what he can do;” and thereupon she poured
out the whole story.

Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested
in her friend’s position; the hours she spent
with Irene were given to confidences of her own; and
at times, for all her affectionate pity, it was impossible
to keep out of her smile a trace of compassionate contempt
for the woman who had made such a mistake in her life—­such
a vast, ridiculous mistake.

“He’s to have all the decorations as well—­a
free hand. It’s perfect—­”
June broke into laughter, her little figure quivered
gleefully; she raised her hand, and struck a blow
at a muslin curtain. “Do you, know I even
asked Uncle James....” But, with a sudden
dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped;
and presently, finding her friend so unresponsive,
went away. She looked back from the pavement,
and Irene was still standing in the doorway.
In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her hand
to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door....

Soames went to the drawing-room presently, and peered
at her through the window.

Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade she was
sitting very still, the lace on her white shoulders
stirring with the soft rise and fall of her bosom.

But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless,
in the dark, there seemed a warmth, a hidden fervour
of feeling, as if the whole of her being had been
stirred, and some change were taking place in its very
depths.

He stole back to the dining-room unnoticed.

CHAPTER VI

JAMES AT LARGE

It was not long before Soames’s determination
to build went the round of the family, and created
the flutter that any decision connected with property
should make among Forsytes.

It was not his fault, for he had been determined that
no one should know. June, in the fulness of her
heart, had told Mrs. Small, giving her leave only
to tell Aunt Ann—­she thought it would cheer
her, the poor old sweet! for Aunt Ann had kept her
room now for many days.

Mrs. Small told Aunt Ann at once, who, smiling as
she lay back on her pillows, said in her distinct,
trembling old voice:

“It’s very nice for dear June; but I hope
they will be careful—­it’s rather
dangerous!”

When she was left alone again, a frown, like a cloud
presaging a rainy morrow, crossed her face.

Page 48

While she was lying there so many days the process
of recharging her will went on all the time; it spread
to her face, too, and tightening movements were always
in action at the corners of her lips.

The maid Smither, who had been in her service since
girlhood, and was spoken of as “Smither—­a
good girl—­but so slow!”—­the
maid Smither performed every morning with extreme
punctiliousness the crowning ceremony of that ancient
toilet. Taking from the recesses of their pure
white band-box those flat, grey curls, the insignia
of personal dignity, she placed them securely in her
mistress’s hands, and turned her back.

And every day Aunts Juley and Hester were required
to come and report on Timothy; what news there was
of Nicholas; whether dear June had succeeded in getting
Jolyon to shorten the engagement, now that Mr. Bosinney
was building Soames a house; whether young Roger’s
wife was really—­expecting; how the operation
on Archie had succeeded; and what Swithin had done
about that empty house in Wigmore Street, where the
tenant had lost all his money and treated him so badly;
above all, about Soames; was Irene still—­still
asking for a separate room? And every morning
Smither was told: “I shall be coming down
this afternoon, Smither, about two o’clock.
I shall want your arm, after all these days in bed!”

After telling Aunt Ann, Mrs. Small had spoken of the
house in the strictest confidence to Mrs. Nicholas,
who in her turn had asked Winifred Dartie for confirmation,
supposing, of course, that, being Soames’s sister,
she would know all about it. Through her it had
in due course come round to the ears of James.
He had been a good deal agitated.

“Nobody,” he said, “told him anything.”
And, rather than go direct to Soames himself, of whose
taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and
went round to Timothy’s.

He found Mrs. Septimus and Hester (who had been told—­she
was so safe, she found it tiring to talk) ready, and
indeed eager, to discuss the news. It was very
good of dear Soames, they thought, to employ Mr. Bosinney,
but rather risky. What had George named him?
‘The Buccaneer’ How droll! But George
was always droll! However, it would be all in
the family they supposed they must really look upon
Mr. Bosinney as belonging to the family, though it
seemed strange.

James here broke in:

“Nobody knows anything about him. I don’t
see what Soames wants with a young man like that.
I shouldn’t be surprised if Irene had put her
oar in. I shall speak to....”

“Soames,” interposed Aunt Juley, “told
Mr. Bosinney that he didn’t wish it mentioned.
He wouldn’t like it to be talked about, I’m
sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed,
I....”

James put his hand behind his ear:

“What?” he said. “I’m
getting very deaf. I suppose I don’t hear
people. Emily’s got a bad toe. We
shan’t be able to start for Wales till the end
of the month. There’ s always something!”
And, having got what he wanted, he took his hat and
went away.

Page 49

It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the
Park towards Soames’s, where he intended to
dine, for Emily’s toe kept her in bed, and Rachel
and Cicely were on a visit to the country. He
took the slanting path from the Bayswater side of
the Row to the Knightsbridge Gate, across a pasture
of short, burnt grass, dotted with blackened sheep,
strewn with seated couples and strange waifs; lying
prone on their faces, like corpses on a field over
which the wave of battle has rolled.

He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither
to right nor, left. The appearance of this park,
the centre of his own battle-field, where he had all
his life been fighting, excited no thought or speculation
in his mind. These corpses flung down, there,
from out the press and turmoil of the struggle, these
pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of
idle Elysium snatched from the monotony of their treadmill,
awakened no fancies in his mind; he had outlived that
kind of imagination; his nose, like the nose of a
sheep, was fastened to the pastures on which he browsed.

One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition
to be behind-hand in his rent, and it had become a
grave question whether he had not better turn him
out at once, and so run the risk of not re-letting
before Christmas. Swithin had just been let
in very badly, but it had served him right—­he
had held on too long.

He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his
umbrella carefully by the wood, just below the crook
of the handle, so as to keep the ferule off the ground,
and not fray the silk in the middle. And, with
his thin, high shoulders stooped, his long legs moving
with swift mechanical precision, this passage through
the Park, where the sun shone with a clear flame on
so much idleness—­on so many human evidences
of the remorseless battle of Property, raging beyond
its ring—­was like the flight of some land
bird across the sea.

He felt a—­touch on the arm as he came out
at Albert Gate.

It was Soames, who, crossing from the shady side of
Piccadilly, where he had been walking home from the
office, had suddenly appeared alongside.

“Your mother’s in bed,” said James;
“I was, just coming to you, but I suppose I
shall be in the way.”

The outward relations between James and his son were
marked by a lack of sentiment peculiarly Forsytean,
but for all that the two were by no means unattached.
Perhaps they regarded one another as an investment;
certainly they were solicitous of each other’s
welfare, glad of each other’s company.
They had never exchanged two words upon the more
intimate problems of life, or revealed in each other’s
presence the existence of any deep feeling.

Something beyond the power of word-analysis bound
them together, something hidden deep in the fibre
of nations and families—­for blood, they
say, is thicker than water—­and neither of
them was a cold-blooded man. Indeed, in James
love of his children was now the prime motive of his
existence. To have creatures who were parts of
himself, to whom he might transmit the money he saved,
was at the root of his saving; and, at seventy-five,
what was left that could give him pleasure, but—­saving?
The kernel of life was in this saving for his children.

Page 50

Than James Forsyte, notwithstanding all his ‘Jonah-isms,’
there was no saner man (if the leading symptom of
sanity, as we are told, is self-preservation, though
without doubt Timothy went too far) in all this London,
of which he owned so much, and loved with such a dumb
love, as the centre of his opportunities. He
had the marvellous instinctive sanity of the middle
class. In him—­more than in Jolyon,
with his masterful will and his moments of tenderness
and philosophy—­more than in Swithin, the
martyr to crankiness—­Nicholas, the sufferer
from ability—­and Roger, the victim of enterprise—­beat
the true pulse of compromise; of all the brothers
he was least remarkable in mind and person, and for
that reason more likely to live for ever.

To James, more than to any of the others, was “the
family” significant and dear. There had
always been something primitive and cosy in his attitude
towards life; he loved the family hearth, he loved
gossip, and he loved grumbling. All his decisions
were formed of a cream which he skimmed off the family
mind; and, through that family, off the minds of thousands
of other families of similar fibre. Year after
year, week after week, he went to Timothy’s,
and in his brother’s front drawing-room—­his
legs twisted, his long white whiskers framing his
clean-shaven mouth—­would sit watching the
family pot simmer, the cream rising to the top; and
he would go away sheltered, refreshed, comforted,
with an indefinable sense of comfort.

Beneath the adamant of his self-preserving instinct
there was much real softness in James; a visit to
Timothy’s was like an hour spent in the lap
of a mother; and the deep craving he himself had for
the protection of the family wing reacted in turn
on his feelings towards his own children; it was a
nightmare to him to think of them exposed to the treatment
of the world, in money, health, or reputation.
When his old friend John Street’s son volunteered
for special service, he shook his head querulously,
and wondered what John Street was about to allow it;
and when young Street was assagaied, he took it so
much to heart that he made a point of calling everywhere
with the special object of saying: He knew how
it would be—­he’d no patience with
them!

When his son-in-law Dartie had that financial crisis,
due to speculation in Oil Shares, James made himself
ill worrying over it; the knell of all prosperity
seemed to have sounded. It took him three months
and a visit to Baden-Baden to get better; there was
something terrible in the idea that but for his, James’s,
money, Dartie’s name might have appeared in
the Bankruptcy List.

Composed of a physiological mixture so sound that
if he had an earache he thought he was dying, he regarded
the occasional ailments of his wife and children as
in the nature of personal grievances, special interventions
of Providence for the purpose of destroying his peace
of mind; but he did not believe at all in the ailments
of people outside his own immediate family, affirming
them in every case to be due to neglected liver.

Page 51

His universal comment was: “What can they
expect? I have it myself, if I’m not careful!”

When he went to Soames’s that evening he felt
that life was hard on him: There was Emily with
a bad toe, and Rachel gadding about in the country;
he got no sympathy from anybody; and Ann, she was ill—­he
did not believe she would last through the summer;
he had called there three times now without her being
able to see him! And this idea of Soames’s,
building a house, that would have to be looked into.
As to the trouble with Irene, he didn’t know
what was to come of that—­anything might
come of it!

He entered 62, Montpellier Square with the fullest
intentions of being miserable. It was already
half-past seven, and Irene, dressed for dinner, was
seated in the drawing-room. She was wearing her
gold-coloured frock—­for, having been displayed
at a dinner-party, a soiree, and a dance, it was now
to be worn at home—­and she had adorned
the bosom with a cascade of lace, on which James’s
eyes riveted themselves at once.

“Where do you get your things?” he said
in an aggravated voice. “I never see Rachel
and Cicely looking half so well. That rose-point,
now—­that’s not real!”

Irene came close, to prove to him that he was in error.

And, in spite of himself, James felt the influence
of her deference, of the faint seductive perfume exhaling
from her. No self-respecting Forsyte surrendered
at a blow; so he merely said: He didn’t
know—­he expected she was spending a pretty
penny on dress.

The gong sounded, and, putting her white arm within
his, Irene took him into the dining-room. She
seated him in Soames’s usual place, round the
corner on her left. The light fell softly there,
so that he would not be worried by the gradual dying
of the day; and she began to talk to him about himself.

Presently, over James came a change, like the mellowing
that steals upon a fruit in the, sun; a sense of
being caressed, and praised, and petted, and all without
the bestowal of a single caress or word of praise.
He felt that what he was eating was agreeing with
him; he could not get that feeling at home; he did
not know when he had enjoyed a glass of champagne
so much, and, on inquiring the brand and price, was
surprised to find that it was one of which he had
a large stock himself, but could never drink; he instantly
formed the resolution to let his wine merchant know
that he had been swindled.

Looking up from his food, he remarked:

“You’ve a lot of nice things about the
place. Now, what did you give for that sugar-sifter?
Shouldn’t wonder if it was worth money!”

He was particularly pleased with the appearance of
a picture, on the wall opposite, which he himself
had given them:

“I’d no idea it was so good!” he
said.

They rose to go into the drawing-room, and James followed
Irene closely.

“That’s what I call a capital little dinner,”
he murmured, breathing pleasantly down on her shoulder;
“nothing heavy—­and not too Frenchified.
But I can’t get it at home. I pay my cook
sixty pounds a year, but she can’t give me a
dinner like that!”

Page 52

He had as yet made no allusion to the building of
the house, nor did he when Soames, pleading the excuse
of business, betook himself to the room at the top,
where he kept his pictures.

James was left alone with his daughter-in-law.
The glow of the wine, and of an excellent liqueur,
was still within him. He felt quite warm towards
her. She was really a taking little thing; she
listened to you, and seemed to understand what you
were saying; and, while talking, he kept examining
her figure, from her bronze-coloured shoes to the waved
gold of her hair. She was leaning back in an
Empire chair, her shoulders poised against the top—­her
body, flexibly straight and unsupported from the hips,
swaying when she moved, as though giving to the arms
of a lover. Her lips were smiling, her eyes half-closed.

It may have been a recognition of danger in the very
charm of her attitude, or a twang of digestion, that
caused a sudden dumbness to fall on James. He
did not remember ever having been quite alone with
Irene before. And, as he looked at her, an odd
feeling crept over him, as though he had come across
something strange and foreign.

Now what was she thinking about—­sitting
back like that?

Thus when he spoke it was in a sharper voice, as if
he had been awakened from a pleasant dream.

“What d’you do with yourself all day?”
he said. “You never come round to Park
Lane!”

She seemed to be making very lame excuses, and James
did not look at her. He did not want to believe
that she was really avoiding them—­it would
mean too much.

“I expect the fact is, you haven’t time,”
he said; “You’re always about with June.
I expect you’re useful to her with her young
man, chaperoning, and one thing and another.
They tell me she’s never at home now; your
Uncle Jolyon he doesn’t like it, I fancy, being
left so much alone as he is. They tell me she’s
always hanging about for this young Bosinney; I suppose
he comes here every day. Now, what do you think
of him? D’you think he knows his own mind?
He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the
grey mare was the better horse!”

The colour deepened in Irene’s face; and James
watched her suspiciously.

“Perhaps you don’t quite understand Mr.
Bosinney,” she said.

“Don’t understand him!” James hummed
out: “Why not?—­you can see he’s
one of these artistic chaps. They say he’s
clever—­they all think they’re clever.
You know more about him than I do,” he added;
and again his suspicious glance rested on her.

“He is designing a house for Soames,”
she said softly, evidently trying to smooth things
over.

“That brings me to what I was going to say,”
continued James; “I don’t know what Soames
wants with a young man like that; why doesn’t
he go to a first-rate man?”

“Perhaps Mr. Bosinney is first-rate!”

James rose, and took a turn with bent head.

Page 53

“That’s it’,” he said, “you
young people, you all stick together; you all think
you know best!”

Halting his tall, lank figure before her, he raised
a finger, and levelled it at her bosom, as though
bringing an indictment against her beauty:

“All I can say is, these artistic people, or
whatever they call themselves, they’re as unreliable
as they can be; and my advice to you is, don’t
you have too much to do with him!”

Irene smiled; and in the curve of her lips was a strange
provocation. She seemed to have lost her deference.
Her breast rose and fell as though with secret anger;
she drew her hands inwards from their rest on the
arms of her chair until the tips of her fingers met,
and her dark eyes looked unfathomably at James.

The latter gloomily scrutinized the floor.

“I tell you my opinion,” he said, “it’s
a pity you haven’t got a child to think about,
and occupy you!”

A brooding look came instantly on Irene’s face,
and even James became conscious of the rigidity that
took possession of her whole figure beneath the softness
of its silk and lace clothing.

He was frightened by the effect he had produced, and
like most men with but little courage, he sought at
once to justify himself by bullying.

“You don’t seem to care about going about.
Why don’t you drive down to Hurlingham with
us? And go to the theatre now and then.
At your time of life you ought to take an interest
in things. You’re a young woman!”

The brooding look darkened on her face; he grew nervous.

“Well, I know nothing about it,” he said;
“nobody tells me anything. Soames ought
to be able to take care of himself. If he can’t
take care of himself he mustn’t look to me—­that’s
all.”

Biting the corner of his forefinger he stole a cold,
sharp look at his daughter-in-law.

He encountered her eyes fixed on his own, so dark
and deep, that he stopped, and broke into a gentle
perspiration.

“Well, I must be going,” he said after
a short pause, and a minute later rose, with a slight
appearance of surprise, as though he had expected to
be asked to stop. Giving his hand to Irene, he
allowed himself to be conducted to the door, and let
out into the street. He would not have a cab,
he would walk, Irene was to say good-night to Soames
for him, and if she wanted a little gaiety, well,
he would drive her down to Richmond any day.

He walked home, and going upstairs, woke Emily out
of the first sleep she had had for four and twenty
hours, to tell her that it was his impression things
were in a bad way at Soames’s; on this theme
he descanted for half an hour, until at last, saying
that he would not sleep a wink, he turned on his side
and instantly began to snore.

In Montpellier Square Soames, who had come from the
picture room, stood invisible at the top of the stairs,
watching Irene sort the letters brought by the last
post. She turned back into the drawing-room;
but in a minute came out, and stood as if listening.
Then she came stealing up the stairs, with a kitten
in her arms. He could see her face bent over
the little beast, which was purring against her neck.
Why couldn’t she look at him like that?

Page 54

Suddenly she saw him, and her face changed.

“Any letters for me?” he said.

“Three.”

He stood aside, and without another word she passed
on into the bedroom.

CHAPTER VII

OLD JOLYON’S PECCADILLO

Old Jolyon came out of Lord’s cricket ground
that same afternoon with the intention of going home.
He had not reached Hamilton Terrace before he changed
his mind, and hailing a cab, gave the driver an address
in Wistaria Avenue. He had taken a resolution.

June had hardly been at home at all that week; she
had given him nothing of her company for a long time
past, not, in fact, since she had become engaged to
Bosinney. He never asked her for her company.
It was not his habit to ask people for things!
She had just that one idea now—­Bosinney
and his affairs—­and she left him stranded
in his great house, with a parcel of servants, and
not a soul to speak to from morning to night.
His Club was closed for cleaning; his Boards in recess;
there was nothing, therefore, to take him into the
City. June had wanted him to go away; she would
not go herself, because Bosinney was in London.

But where was he to go by himself? He could
not go abroad alone; the sea upset his liver; he hated
hotels. Roger went to a hydropathic—­he
was not going to begin that at his time of life, those
new-fangled places we’re all humbug!

With such formulas he clothed to himself the desolation
of his spirit; the lines down his face deepening,
his eyes day by day looking forth with the melancholy
which sat so strangely on a face wont to be strong
and serene.

And so that afternoon he took this journey through
St. John’s Wood, in the golden-light that sprinkled
the rounded green bushes of the acacia’s before
the little houses, in the summer sunshine that seemed
holding a revel over the little gardens; and he looked
about him with interest; for this was a district which
no Forsyte entered without open disapproval and secret
curiosity.

His cab stopped in front of a small house of that
peculiar buff colour which implies a long immunity
from paint. It had an outer gate, and a rustic
approach.

He stepped out, his bearing extremely composed; his
massive head, with its drooping moustache and wings
of white hair, very upright, under an excessively
large top hat; his glance firm, a little angry.
He had been driven into this!

“Mrs. Jolyon Forsyte at home?”

“Oh, yes sir!—­what name shall I say,
if you please, sir?”

Old Jolyon could not help twinkling at the little
maid as he gave his name. She seemed to him
such a funny little toad!

And he followed her through the dark hall, into a
small double, drawing-room, where the furniture was
covered in chintz, and the little maid placed him
in a chair.

“They’re all in the garden, sir; if you’ll
kindly take a seat, I’ll tell them.”

Page 55

Old Jolyon sat down in the chintz-covered chair, and
looked around him. The whole place seemed to
him, as he would have expressed it, pokey; there was
a certain—­he could not tell exactly what—­air
of shabbiness, or rather of making two ends meet,
about everything. As far as he could see, not
a single piece of furniture was worth a five-pound
note. The walls, distempered rather a long time
ago, were decorated with water-colour sketches; across
the ceiling meandered a long crack.

These little houses were all old, second-rate concerns;
he should hope the rent was under a hundred a year;
it hurt him more than he could have said, to think
of a Forsyte—­his own son living in such
a place.

The little maid came back. Would he please to
go down into the garden?

Old Jolyon marched out through the French windows.
In descending the steps he noticed that they wanted
painting.

Young Jolyon, his wife, his two children, and his
dog Balthasar, were all out there under a pear-tree.

This walk towards them was the most courageous act
of old Jolyon’s life; but no muscle of his face
moved, no nervous gesture betrayed him. He kept
his deep-set eyes steadily on the enemy.

In those two minutes he demonstrated to perfection
all that unconscious soundness, balance, and vitality
of fibre that made, of him and so many others of his
class the core of the nation. In the unostentatious
conduct of their own affairs, to the neglect of everything
else, they typified the essential individualism, born
in the Briton from the natural isolation of his country’s
life.

The dog Balthasar sniffed round the edges of his trousers;
this friendly and cynical mongrel—­offspring
of a liaison between a Russian poodle and a fox-terrier—­had
a nose for the unusual.

The strange greetings over, old Jolyon seated himself
in a wicker chair, and his two grandchildren, one
on each side of his knees, looked at him silently,
never having seen so old a man.

They were unlike, as though recognising the difference
set between them by the circumstances of their births.
Jolly, the child of sin, pudgy-faced, with his tow-coloured
hair brushed off his forehead, and a dimple in his
chin, had an air of stubborn amiability, and the eyes
of a Forsyte; little Holly, the child of wedlock,
was a dark-skinned, solemn soul, with her mother’s,
grey and wistful eyes.

The dog Balthasar, having walked round the three small
flower-beds, to show his extreme contempt for things
at large, had also taken a seat in front of old Jolyon,
and, oscillating a tail curled by Nature tightly over
his back, was staring up with eyes that did not blink.

Even in the garden, that sense of things being pokey
haunted old Jolyon; the wicker chair creaked under
his weight; the garden-beds looked ‘daverdy’;
on the far side, under the smut-stained wall, cats
had made a path.

While he and his grandchildren thus regarded each
other with the peculiar scrutiny, curious yet trustful,
that passes between the very young and the very old,
young Jolyon watched his wife.

Page 56

The colour had deepened in her thin, oval face, with
its straight brows, and large, grey eyes. Her
hair, brushed in fine, high curves back from her forehead,
was going grey, like his own, and this greyness made
the sudden vivid colour in her cheeks painfully pathetic.

The look on her face, such as he had never seen there
before, such as she had always hidden from him, was
full of secret resentments, and longings, and fears.
Her eyes, under their twitching brows, stared painfully.
And she was silent.

Jolly alone sustained the conversation; he had many
possessions, and was anxious that his unknown friend
with extremely large moustaches, and hands all covered
with blue veins, who sat with legs crossed like his
own father (a habit he was himself trying to acquire),
should know it; but being a Forsyte, though not yet
quite eight years old, he made no mention of the thing
at the moment dearest to his heart—­a camp
of soldiers in a shop-window, which his father had
promised to buy. No doubt it seemed to him too
precious; a tempting of Providence to mention it yet.

And the sunlight played through the leaves on that
little party of the three generations grouped tranquilly
under the pear-tree, which had long borne no fruit.

Old Jolyon’s furrowed face was reddening patchily,
as old men’s faces redden in the sun.
He took one of Jolly’s hands in his own; the
boy climbed on to his knee; and little Holly, mesmerized
by this sight, crept up to them; the sound of the
dog Balthasar’s scratching arose rhythmically.

Suddenly young Mrs. Jolyon got up and hurried indoors.
A minute later her husband muttered an excuse, and
followed. Old Jolyon was left alone with his
grandchildren.

And Nature with her quaint irony began working in
him one of her strange revolutions, following her
cyclic laws into the depths of his heart. And
that tenderness for little children, that passion for
the beginnings of life which had once made him forsake
his son and follow June, now worked in him to forsake
June and follow these littler things. Youth,
like a flame, burned ever in his breast, and to youth
he turned, to the round little limbs, so reckless,
that wanted care, to the small round faces so unreasonably
solemn or bright, to the treble tongues, and the shrill,
chuckling laughter, to the insistent tugging hands,
and the feel of small bodies against his legs, to
all that was young and young, and once more young.
And his eyes grew soft, his voice, and thin-veined
hands soft, and soft his heart within him. And
to those small creatures he became at once a place
of pleasure, a place where they were secure, and could
talk and laugh and play; till, like sunshine, there
radiated from old Jolyon’s wicker chair the
perfect gaiety of three hearts.

But with young Jolyon following to his wife’s
room it was different.

He found her seated on a chair before her dressing-glass,
with her hands before her face.

Page 57

Her shoulders were shaking with sobs. This passion
of hers for suffering was mysterious to him.
He had been through a hundred of these moods; how
he had survived them he never knew, for he could never
believe they were moods, and that the last hour of
his partnership had not struck.

In the night she would be sure to throw her arms round
his neck and say: “Oh! Jo, how I make
you suffer!” as she had done a hundred times
before.

He reached out his hand, and, unseen, slipped his
razor-case into his pocket. ‘I cannot
stay here,’ he thought, ‘I must go down!’
Without a word he left the room, and went back to
the lawn.

Old Jolyon had little Holly on his knee; she had taken
possession of his watch; Jolly, very red in the face,
was trying to show that he could stand on his head.
The dog Balthasar, as close as he might be to the
tea-table, had fixed his eyes on the cake.

Young Jolyon felt a malicious desire to cut their
enjoyment short.

What business had his father to come and upset his
wife like this? It was a shock, after all these
years! He ought to have known; he ought to have
given them warning; but when did a Forsyte ever imagine
that his conduct could upset anybody! And in
his thoughts he did old Jolyon wrong.

He spoke sharply to the children, and told them to
go in to their tea. Greatly surprised, for they
had never heard their father speak sharply before,
they went off, hand in hand, little Holly looking back
over her shoulder.

Young Jolyon poured out the tea.

“My wife’s not the thing today,”
he said, but he knew well enough that his father had
penetrated the cause of that sudden withdrawal, and
almost hated the old man for sitting there so calmly.

“You’ve got a nice little house here,”
said old Jolyon with a shrewd look; “I suppose
you’ve taken a lease of it!”

Young Jolyon nodded.

“I don’t like the neighbourhood,”
said old Jolyon; “a ramshackle lot.”

Young Jolyon replied: “Yes, we’re
a ramshackle lot."’

The silence was now only broken by the sound of the
dog Balthasar’s scratching.

Old Jolyon said simply: “I suppose I oughtn’t
to have come here, Jo; but
I get so lonely!”

At these words young Jolyon got up and put his hand
on his father’s shoulder.

In the next house someone was playing over and over
again: ’La Donna mobile’ on an untuned
piano; and the little garden had fallen into shade,
the sun now only reached the wall at the end, whereon
basked a crouching cat, her yellow eyes turned sleepily
down on the dog Balthasar. There was a drowsy
hum of very distant traffic; the creepered trellis
round the garden shut out everything but sky, and
house, and pear-tree, with its top branches still
gilded by the sun.

For some time they sat there, talking but little.
Then old Jolyon rose to go, and not a word was said
about his coming again.

Page 58

He walked away very sadly. What a poor miserable
place; and he thought of the great, empty house in
Stanhope Gate, fit residence for a Forsyte, with its
huge billiard-room and drawing-room that no one entered
from one week’s end to another.

That woman, whose face he had rather liked, was too
thin-skinned by half; she gave Jo a bad time he knew!
And those sweet children! Ah! what a piece
of awful folly!

He walked towards the Edgware Road, between rows of
little houses, all suggesting to him (erroneously
no doubt, but the prejudices of a Forsyte are sacred)
shady histories of some sort or kind.

Society, forsooth, the chattering hags and jackanapes—­had
set themselves up to pass judgment on his flesh and
blood! A parcel of old women! He stumped
his umbrella on the ground, as though to drive it into
the heart of that unfortunate body, which had dared
to ostracize his son and his son’s son, in whom
he could have lived again!

He stumped his umbrella fiercely; yet he himself had
followed Society’s behaviour for fifteen years—­had
only today been false to it!

He thought of June, and her dead mother, and the whole
story, with all his old bitterness. A wretched
business!

He was a long time reaching Stanhope Gate, for, with
native perversity, being extremely tired, he walked
the whole way.

After washing his hands in the lavatory downstairs,
he went to the dining-room to wait for dinner, the
only room he used when June was out—­it
was less lonely so. The evening paper had not
yet come; he had finished the Times, there was therefore
nothing to do.

The room faced the backwater of traffic, and was very
silent. He disliked dogs, but a dog even would
have been company. His gaze, travelling round
the walls, rested on a picture entitled: ’Group
of Dutch fishing boats at sunset’; the chef
d’oeuvre of his collection. It gave him
no pleasure. He closed his eyes. He was
lonely! He oughtn’t to complain, he knew,
but he couldn’t help it: He was a poor thing—­had
always been a poor thing—­no pluck!
Such was his thought.

The butler came to lay the table for dinner, and seeing
his master apparently asleep, exercised extreme caution
in his movements. This bearded man also wore
a moustache, which had given rise to grave doubts
in the minds of many members—­of the family—­,
especially those who, like Soames, had been to public
schools, and were accustomed to niceness in such matters.
Could he really be considered a butler? Playful
spirits alluded to him as: ‘Uncle Jolyon’s
Nonconformist’; George, the acknowledged wag,
had named him: ‘Sankey.’

He moved to and fro between the great polished sideboard
and the great polished table inimitably sleek and
soft.

Old Jolyon watched him, feigning sleep. The
fellow was a sneak—­he had always thought
so—­who cared about nothing but rattling
through his work, and getting out to his betting or
his woman or goodness knew what! A slug!
Fat too! And didn’t care a pin about his
master!

Page 59

But then against his will, came one of those moments
of philosophy which made old Jolyon different from
other Forsytes:

After all why should the man care? He wasn’t
paid to care, and why expect it? In this world
people couldn’t look for affection unless they
paid for it. It might be different in the next—­he
didn’t know—­couldn’t tell!
And again he shut his eyes.

Relentless and stealthy, the butler pursued his labours,
taking things from the various compartments of the
sideboard. His back seemed always turned to
old Jolyon; thus, he robbed his operations of the unseemliness
of being carried on in his master’s presence;
now and then he furtively breathed on the silver,
and wiped it with a piece of chamois leather.
He appeared to pore over the quantities of wine in
the decanters, which he carried carefully and rather
high, letting his heard droop over them protectingly.
When he had finished, he stood for over a minute watching
his master, and in his greenish eyes there was a look
of contempt:

After all, this master of his was an old buffer, who
hadn’t much left in him!

Soft as a tom-cat, he crossed the room to press the
bell. His orders were ‘dinner at seven.’
What if his master were asleep; he would soon have
him out of that; there was the night to sleep in!
He had himself to think of, for he was due at his
Club at half-past eight!

In answer to the ring, appeared a page boy with a
silver soup tureen. The butler took it from his
hands and placed it on the table, then, standing by
the open door, as though about to usher company into
the room, he said in a solemn voice:

“Dinner is on the table, sir!”

Slowly old Jolyon got up out of his chair, and sat
down at the table to eat his dinner.

CHAPTER VIII

PLANS OF THE HOUSE

Forsytes, as is generally admitted, have shells, like
that extremely useful little animal which is made
into Turkish delight, in other words, they are never
seen, or if seen would not be recognised, without
habitats, composed of circumstance, property, acquaintances,
and wives, which seem to move along with them in their
passage through a world composed of thousands of other
Forsytes with their habitats. Without a habitat
a Forsyte is inconceivable—­he would be like
a novel without a plot, which is well-known to be
an anomaly.

To Forsyte eyes Bosinney appeared to have no habitat,
he seemed one of those rare and unfortunate men who
go through life surrounded by circumstance, property,
acquaintances, and wives that do not belong to them.

His rooms in Sloane Street, on the top floor, outside
which, on a plate, was his name, ‘Philip Baynes
Bosinney, Architect,’ were not those of a Forsyte.—­He
had no sitting-room apart from his office, but a large
recess had been screened off to conceal the necessaries
of life—­a couch, an easy chair, his pipes,
spirit case, novels and slippers. The business
part of the room had the usual furniture; an open cupboard
with pigeon-holes, a round oak table, a folding wash-stand,
some hard chairs, a standing desk of large dimensions
covered with drawings and designs. June had twice
been to tea there under the chaperonage of his aunt.

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He was believed to have a bedroom at the back.

As far as the family had been able to ascertain his
income, it consisted of two consulting appointments
at twenty pounds a year, together with an odd fee
once in a way, and—­more worthy item—­a
private annuity under his father’s will of one
hundred and fifty pounds a year.

What had transpired concerning that father was not
so reassuring. It appeared that he had been a
Lincolnshire country doctor of Cornish extraction,
striking appearance, and Byronic tendencies—­a
well-known figure, in fact, in his county. Bosinney’s
uncle by marriage, Baynes, of Baynes and Bildeboy,
a Forsyte in instincts if not in name, had but little
that was worthy to relate of his brother-in-law.

“An odd fellow!’ he would say: ’always
spoke of his three eldest boys as ‘good creatures,
but so dull’; they’re all doing capitally
in the Indian Civil! Philip was the only one
he liked. I’ve heard him talk in the queerest
way; he once said to me: ’My dear fellow,
never let your poor wife know what you’re thinking
of! But I didn’t follow his advice; not
I! An eccentric man! He would say to Phil:
’Whether you live like a gentleman or not, my
boy, be sure you die like one! and he had himself
embalmed in a frock coat suit, with a satin cravat
and a diamond pin. Oh, quite an original, I can
assure you!”

Of Bosinney himself Baynes would speak warmly, with
a certain compassion: “He’s got a
streak of his father’s Byronism. Why, look
at the way he threw up his chances when he left my
office; going off like that for six months with a
knapsack, and all for what?—­to study foreign
architecture—­foreign! What could he
expect? And there he is—­a clever
young fellow—­doesn’t make his hundred
a year! Now this engagement is the best thing
that could have happened—­keep him steady;
he’s one of those that go to bed all day and
stay up all night, simply because they’ve no
method; but no vice about him—­not an ounce
of vice. Old Forsyte’s a rich man!”

Mr. Baynes made himself extremely pleasant to June,
who frequently visited his house in Lowndes Square
at this period.

“This house of your cousin’s—­what
a capital man of business—­is the very thing
for Philip,” he would say to her; “you
mustn’t expect to see too much of him just now,
my dear young lady. The good cause—­the
good cause! The young man must make his way.
When I was his age I was at work day and night.
My dear wife used to say to me, ’Bobby, don’t
work too hard, think of your health’; but I
never spared myself!”

June had complained that her lover found no time to
come to Stanhope Gate.

The first time he came again they had not been together
a quarter of an hour before, by one of those coincidences
of which she was a mistress, Mrs. Septimus Small arrived.
Thereon Bosinney rose and hid himself, according
to previous arrangement, in the little study, to wait
for her departure.

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“My dear,” said Aunt Juley, “how
thin he is! I’ve often noticed it with
engaged people; but you mustn’t let it get worse.
There’s Barlow’s extract of veal; it did
your Uncle Swithin a lot of good.”

June, her little figure erect before the hearth, her
small face quivering grimly, for she regarded her
aunt’s untimely visit in the light of a personal
injury, replied with scorn:

“It’s because he’s busy; people
who can do anything worth doing are never fat!”

Aunt Juley pouted; she herself had always been thin,
but the only pleasure she derived from the fact was
the opportunity of longing to be stouter.

“I don’t think,” she said mournfully,
“that you ought to let them call him ‘The
Buccaneer’; people might think it odd, now that
he’s going to build a house for Soames.
I do hope he will be careful; it’s so important
for him. Soames has such good taste!”

“Taste!” cried June, flaring up at once;
“wouldn’t give that for his taste, or
any of the family’s!”

Mrs. Small was taken aback.

“Your Uncle Swithin,” she said, “always
had beautiful taste! And Soames’s little
house is lovely; you don’t mean to say you don’t
think so!”

“H’mph!” said June, “that’s
only because Irene’s there!”

Aunt Juley tried to say something pleasant:

“And how will dear Irene like living in the
country?”

June gazed at her intently, with a look in her eyes
as if her conscience had suddenly leaped up into them;
it passed; and an even more intent look took its place,
as if she had stared that conscience out of countenance.
She replied imperiously:

“Of course she’ll like it; why shouldn’t
she?”

Mrs. Small grew nervous.

“I didn’t know,” she said; “I
thought she mightn’t like to leave her friends.
Your Uncle James says she doesn’t take enough
interest in life. We think—­I mean
Timothy thinks—­she ought to go out more.
I expect you’ll miss her very much!”

Aunt Juley, unable to think of anything further on
the subject that would be suitable, was silent; she
prepared for departure, hooking her black silk cape
across her chest, and, taking up her green reticule:

“And how is your dear grandfather?” she
asked in the hall, “I expect he’s very
lonely now that all your time is taken up with Mr.
Bosinney.”

She bent and kissed her niece hungrily, and with little,
mincing steps passed away.

The tears sprang up in June’s eyes; running
into the little study, where Bosinney was sitting
at the table drawing birds on the back of an envelope,
she sank down by his side and cried:

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“Oh, Phil! it’s all so horrid!”
Her heart was as warm as the colour of her hair.

On the following Sunday morning, while Soames was
shaving, a message was brought him to the effect that
Mr. Bosinney was below, and would be glad to see him.
Opening the door into his wife’s room, he said:

“Bosinney’s downstairs. Just go
and entertain him while I finish shaving. I’ll
be down in a minute. It’s about the plans,
I expect.”

Irene looked at him, without reply, put the finishing
touch to her dress and went downstairs. He could
not make her out about this house. She had said
nothing against it, and, as far as Bosinney was concerned,
seemed friendly enough.

From the window of his dressing-room he could see
them talking together in the little court below.
He hurried on with his shaving, cutting his chin
twice. He heard them laugh, and thought to himself:
“Well, they get on all right, anyway!”

As he expected, Bosinney had come round to fetch him
to look at the plans.

He took his hat and went over.

The plans were spread on the oak table in the architect’s
room; and pale, imperturbable, inquiring, Soames bent
over them for a long time without speaking.

He said at last in a puzzled voice:

“It’s an odd sort of house!”

A rectangular house of two stories was designed in
a quadrangle round a covered-in court. This
court, encircled by a gallery on the upper floor,
was roofed with a glass roof, supported by eight columns
running up from the ground.

It was indeed, to Forsyte eyes, an odd house.

“There’s a lot of room cut to waste,”
pursued Soames.

Bosinney began to walk about, and Soames did not like
the expression on his face.

“The principle of this house,” said the
architect, “was that you should have room to
breathe—­like a gentleman!”

Soames extended his finger and thumb, as if measuring
the extent of the distinction he should acquire; and
replied:

“Oh! yes; I see.”

The peculiar look came into Bosinney’s face
which marked all his enthusiasms.

“I’ve tried to plan you a house here with
some self-respect of its own. If you don’t
like it, you’d better say so. It’s
certainly the last thing to be considered—­who
wants self-respect in a house, when you can squeeze
in an extra lavatory?” He put his finger suddenly
down on the left division of the centre oblong:
“You can swing a cat here. This is for
your pictures, divided from this court by curtains;
draw them back and you’ll have a space of fifty-one
by twenty-three six. This double-faced stove
in the centre, here, looks one way towards the court,
one way towards the picture room; this end wall is
all window; You’ve a southeast light from that,
a north light from the court. The rest of your
pictures you can hang round the gallery upstairs, or
in the other rooms.” “In architecture,”

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he went on—­and though looking at Soames
he did not seem to see him, which gave Soames an unpleasant
feeling—­“as in life, you’ll
get no self-respect without regularity. Fellows
tell you that’s old fashioned. It appears
to be peculiar any way; it never occurs to us to embody
the main principle of life in our buildings; we load
our houses with decoration, gimcracks, corners, anything
to distract the eye. On the contrary the eye
should rest; get your effects with a few strong lines.
The whole thing is regularity there’s no self-respect
without it.”

Soames, the unconscious ironist, fixed his gaze on
Bosinney’s tie, which was far from being in
the perpendicular; he was unshaven too, and his dress
not remarkable for order. Architecture appeared
to have exhausted his regularity.

“Won’t it look like a barrack?”
he inquired.

He did not at once receive a reply.

“I can see what it is,” said Bosinney,
“you want one of Littlemaster’s houses—­one
of the pretty and commodious sort, where the servants
will live in garrets, and the front door be sunk so
that you may come up again. By all means try
Littlemaster, you’ll find him a capital fellow,
I’ve known him all my life!”

Soames was alarmed. He had really been struck
by the plans, and the concealment of his satisfaction
had been merely instinctive. It was difficult
for him to pay a compliment. He despised people
who were lavish with their praises.

He found himself now in the embarrassing position
of one who must pay a compliment or run the risk of
losing a good thing. Bosinney was just the fellow
who might tear up the plans and refuse to act for him;
a kind of grown-up child!

This grown-up childishness, to which he felt so superior,
exercised a peculiar and almost mesmeric effect on
Soames, for he had never felt anything like it in
himself.

“Well,” he stammered at last, “it’s—­it’s,
certainly original.”

He had such a private distrust and even dislike of
the word ‘original’ that he felt he had
not really given himself away by this remark.

Bosinney seemed pleased. It was the sort of
thing that would please a fellow like that!
And his success encouraged Soames.

“It’s—­a big place,” he
said.

“Space, air, light,” he heard Bosinney
murmur, “you can’t live like a gentleman
in one of Littlemaster’s—­he builds
for manufacturers.”

Soames made a deprecating movement; he had been identified
with a gentleman; not for a good deal of money now
would he be classed with manufacturers. But
his innate distrust of general principles revived.
What the deuce was the good of talking about regularity
and self-respect? It looked to him as if the
house would be cold.

“Irene can’t stand the cold!” he
said.

“Ah!” said Bosinney sarcastically.
“Your wife? She doesn’t like the
cold? I’ll see to that; she shan’t
be cold. Look here!” he pointed, to four
marks at regular intervals on the walls of the court.
“I’ve given you hot-water pipes in aluminium
casings; you can get them with very good designs.”

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Soames looked suspiciously at these marks.

“It’s all very well, all this,”
he said, “but what’s it going to cost?”

The architect took a sheet of paper from his pocket:

“The house, of course, should be built entirely
of stone, but, as I thought you wouldn’t stand
that, I’ve compromised for a facing. It
ought to have a copper roof, but I’ve made it
green slate. As it is, including metal work,
it’ll cost you eight thousand five hundred.”

“Eight thousand five hundred?” said Soames.
“Why, I gave you an outside limit of eight!”

“Can’t be done for a penny less,”
replied Bosinney coolly.

“You must take it or leave it!”

It was the only way, probably, that such a proposition
could have been made to Soames. He was nonplussed.
Conscience told him to throw the whole thing up.
But the design was good, and he knew it—­there
was completeness about it, and dignity; the servants’
apartments were excellent too. He would gain
credit by living in a house like that—­with
such individual features, yet perfectly well-arranged.

He continued poring over the plans, while Bosinney
went into his bedroom to shave and dress.

The two walked back to Montpellier Square in silence,
Soames watching him out of the corner of his eye.

The Buccaneer was rather a good-looking fellow—­so
he thought—­when he was properly got up.

Irene was bending over her flowers when the two men
came in.

She spoke of sending across the Park to fetch June.

“No, no,” said Soames, “we’ve
still got business to talk over!”

At lunch he was almost cordial, and kept pressing
Bosinney to eat. He was pleased to see the architect
in such high spirits, and left him to spend the afternoon
with Irene, while he stole off to his pictures, after
his Sunday habit. At tea-time he came down to
the drawing-room, and found them talking, as he expressed
it, nineteen to the dozen.

Unobserved in the doorway, he congratulated himself
that things were taking the right turn. It was
lucky she and Bosinney got on; she seemed to be falling
into line with the idea of the new house.

Quiet meditation among his pictures had decided him
to spring the five hundred if necessary; but he hoped
that the afternoon might have softened Bosinney’s
estimates. It was so purely a matter which Bosinney
could remedy if he liked; there must be a dozen ways
in which he could cheapen the production of a house
without spoiling the effect.

He awaited, therefore, his opportunity till Irene
was handing the architect his first cup of tea.
A chink of sunshine through the lace of the blinds
warmed her cheek, shone in the gold of her hair, and
in her soft eyes. Possibly the same gleam deepened
Bosinney’s colour, gave the rather startled
look to his face.

Soames hated sunshine, and he at once got up, to draw
the blind. Then he took his own cup of tea from
his wife, and said, more coldly than he had intended:

Page 65

“Can’t you see your way to do it for eight
thousand after all? There must be a lot of little
things you could alter.”

Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his
cup, and answered:

“Not one!”

Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible
point of personal vanity.

“Well,” he agreed, with sulky resignation;
“you must have it your own way, I suppose.”

A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames
rose too, to see him off the premises. The architect
seemed in absurdly high spirits. After watching
him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames returned moodily
to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting away
the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm of
curiosity, he asked:

“Well, what do you think of ’The Buccaneer’?”

He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer,
and he had to wait some time.

“I don’t know,” she said at last.

“Do you think he’s good-looking?”

Irene smiled. And it seemed to Soames that she
was mocking him.

“Yes,” she answered; “very.”

CHAPTER IX

DEATH OF AUNT ANN

There came a morning at the end of September when
Aunt Ann was unable to take from Smither’s hands
the insignia of personal dignity. After one
look at the old face, the doctor, hurriedly sent for,
announced that Miss Forsyte had passed away in her
sleep.

Aunts Juley and Hester were overwhelmed by the shock.
They had never imagined such an ending. Indeed,
it is doubtful whether they had ever realized that
an ending was bound to come. Secretly they felt
it unreasonable of Ann to have left them like this
without a word, without even a struggle. It
was unlike her.

Perhaps what really affected them so profoundly was
the thought that a Forsyte should have let go her
grasp on life. If one, then why not all!

It was a full hour before they could make up their
minds to tell Timothy. If only it could be kept
from him! If only it could be broken to him by
degrees!

And long they stood outside his door whispering together.
And when it was over they whispered together again.

He would feel it more, they were afraid, as time went
on. Still, he had taken it better than could
have been expected. He would keep his bed, of
course!

They separated, crying quietly.

Aunt Juley stayed in her room, prostrated by the blow.
Her face, discoloured by tears, was divided into
compartments by the little ridges of pouting flesh
which had swollen with emotion. It was impossible
to conceive of life without Ann, who had lived with
her for seventy-three years, broken only by the short
interregnum of her married life, which seemed now
so unreal. At fixed intervals she went to her
drawer, and took from beneath the lavender bags a
fresh pocket-handkerchief. Her warm heart could
not bear the thought that Ann was lying there so cold.

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Aunt Hester, the silent, the patient, that backwater
of the family energy, sat in the drawing-room, where
the blinds were drawn; and she, too, had wept at first,
but quietly, without visible effect. Her guiding
principle, the conservation of energy, did not abandon
her in sorrow. She sat, slim, motionless, studying
the grate, her hands idle in the lap of her black
silk dress. They would want to rouse her into
doing something, no doubt. As if there were
any good in that! Doing something would not
bring back Ann! Why worry her?

Five o’clock brought three of the brothers,
Jolyon and James and Swithin; Nicholas was at Yarmouth,
and Roger had a bad attack of gout. Mrs. Hayman
had been by herself earlier in the day, and, after
seeing Ann, had gone away, leaving a message for Timothy—­which
was kept from him—­that she ought to have
been told sooner. In fact, there was a feeling
amongst them all that they ought to have been told
sooner, as though they had missed something; and James
said:

“I knew how it’d be; I told you she wouldn’t
last through the summer.”

Aunt Hester made no reply; it was nearly October,
but what was the good of arguing; some people were
never satisfied.

She sent up to tell her sister that the brothers were
there. Mrs. Small came down at once. She
had bathed her face, which was still swollen, and
though she looked severely at Swithin’s trousers,
for they were of light blue—­he had come
straight from the club, where the news had reached
him—­she wore a more cheerful expression
than usual, the instinct for doing the wrong thing
being even now too strong for her.

Presently all five went up to look at the body.
Under the pure white sheet a quilted counter-pane
had been placed, for now, more than ever, Aunt Ann
had need of warmth; and, the pillows removed, her spine
and head rested flat, with the semblance of their
life-long inflexibility; the coif banding the top
of her brow was drawn on either side to the level of
the ears, and between it and the sheet her face, almost
as white, was turned with closed eyes to the faces
of her brothers and sisters. In its extraordinary
peace the face was stronger than ever, nearly all bone
now under the scarce-wrinkled parchment of skin—­square
jaw and chin, cheekbones, forehead with hollow temples,
chiselled nose—­the fortress of an unconquerable
spirit that had yielded to death, and in its upward
sightlessness seemed trying to regain that spirit,
to regain the guardianship it had just laid down.

Swithin took but one look at the face, and left the
room; the sight, he said afterwards, made him very
queer. He went downstairs shaking the whole
house, and, seizing his hat, clambered into his brougham,
without giving any directions to the coachman.
He was driven home, and all the evening sat in his
chair without moving.

He could take nothing for dinner but a partridge,
with an imperial pint of champagne....

Page 67

Old Jolyon stood at the bottom of the bed, his hands
folded in front of him. He alone of those in
the room remembered the death of his mother, and though
he looked at Ann, it was of that he was thinking.
Ann was an old woman, but death had come to her at
last—­death came to all! His face
did not move, his gaze seemed travelling from very
far.

Aunt Hester stood beside him. She did not cry
now, tears were exhausted—­her nature refused
to permit a further escape of force; she twisted her
hands, looking not at Ann, but from side to side, seeking
some way of escaping the effort of realization.

Of all the brothers and sisters James manifested the
most emotion. Tears rolled down the parallel
furrows of his thin face; where he should go now to
tell his troubles he did not know; Juley was no good,
Hester worse than useless! He felt Ann’s
death more than he had ever thought he should; this
would upset him for weeks!

Presently Aunt Hester stole out, and Aunt Juley began
moving about, doing ‘what was necessary,’
so that twice she knocked against something.
Old Jolyon, roused from his reverie, that reverie
of the long, long past, looked sternly at her, and
went away. James alone was left by the bedside;
glancing stealthily round, to see that he was not observed,
he twisted his long body down, placed a kiss on the
dead forehead, then he, too, hastily left the room.
Encountering Smither in the hall, he began to ask
her about the funeral, and, finding that she knew nothing,
complained bitterly that, if they didn’t take
care, everything would go wrong. She had better
send for Mr. Soames—­he knew all about that
sort of thing; her master was very much upset, he
supposed—­he would want looking after; as
for her mistresses, they were no good—­they
had no gumption! They would be ill too, he shouldn’t
wonder. She had better send for the doctor;
it was best to take things in time. He didn’t
think his sister Ann had had the best opinion; if
she’d had Blank she would have been alive now.
Smither might send to Park Lane any time she wanted
advice. Of course, his carriage was at their
service for the funeral. He supposed she hadn’t
such a thing as a glass of claret and a biscuit—­he
had had no lunch!

The days before the funeral passed quietly.
It had long been known, of course, that Aunt Ann had
left her little property to Timothy. There was,
therefore, no reason for the slightest agitation.
Soames, who was sole executor, took charge of all
arrangements, and in due course sent out the following
invitation to every male member of the family:

To...........

Your presence is requested at the funeral of Miss
Ann Forsyte, in Highgate Cemetery, at noon of Oct.
1st. Carriages will meet at “The Bower,”
Bayswater Road, at 10.45. No flowers by request.
‘R.S.V.P.’

Page 68

The morning came, cold, with a high, grey, London
sky, and at half-past ten the first carriage, that
of James, drove up. It contained James and his
son-in-law Dartie, a fine man, with a square chest,
buttoned very tightly into a frock coat, and a sallow,
fattish face adorned with dark, well-curled moustaches,
and that incorrigible commencement of whisker which,
eluding the strictest attempts at shaving, seems the
mark of something deeply ingrained in the personality
of the shaver, being especially noticeable in men
who speculate.

Soames, in his capacity of executor, received the
guests, for Timothy still kept his bed; he would get
up after the funeral; and Aunts Juley and Hester would
not be coming down till all was over, when it was
understood there would be lunch for anyone who cared
to come back. The next to arrive was Roger,
still limping from the gout, and encircled by three
of his sons—­young Roger, Eustace, and Thomas.
George, the remaining son, arrived almost immediately
afterwards in a hansom, and paused in the hall to
ask Soames how he found undertaking pay.

They disliked each other.

Then came two Haymans—­Giles and Jesse perfectly
silent, and very well dressed, with special creases
down their evening trousers. Then old Jolyon
alone. Next, Nicholas, with a healthy colour
in his face, and a carefully veiled sprightliness
in every movement of his head and body. One of
his sons followed him, meek and subdued. Swithin
Forsyte, and Bosinney arrived at the same moment,—­and
stood—­bowing precedence to each other,—­but
on the door opening they tried to enter together; they
renewed their apologies in the hall, and, Swithin,
settling his stock, which had become disarranged in
the struggle, very slowly mounted the stairs.
The other Hayman; two married sons of Nicholas, together
with Tweetyman, Spender, and Warry, the husbands of
married Forsyte and Hayman daughters. The company
was then complete, twenty-one in all, not a male member
of the family being absent but Timothy and young Jolyon.

Entering the scarlet and green drawing-room, whose
apparel made so vivid a setting for their unaccustomed
costumes, each tried nervously to find a seat, desirous
of hiding the emphatic blackness of his trousers.
There seemed a sort of indecency in that blackness
and in the colour of their gloves—­a sort
of exaggeration of the feelings; and many cast shocked
looks of secret envy at ‘the Buccaneer,’
who had no gloves, and was wearing grey trousers.
A subdued hum of conversation rose, no one speaking
of the departed, but each asking after the other, as
though thereby casting an indirect libation to this
event, which they had come to honour.

And presently James said:

“Well, I think we ought to be starting.”

They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had
been told off in strict precedence, mounted the carriages.

Page 69

The hearse started at a foot’s pace; the carriages
moved slowly after. In the first went old Jolyon
with Nicholas; in the second, the twins, Swithin and
James; in the third, Roger and young Roger; Soames,
young Nicholas, George, and Bosinney followed in the
fourth. Each of the other carriages, eight in
all, held three or four of the family; behind them
came the doctor’s brougham; then, at a decent
interval, cabs containing family clerks and servants;
and at the very end, one containing nobody at all,
but bringing the total cortege up to the number of
thirteen.

So long as the procession kept to the highway of the
Bayswater Road, it retained the foot’s-pace,
but, turning into less important thorough-fares, it
soon broke into a trot, and so proceeded, with intervals
of walking in the more fashionable streets, until it
arrived. In the first carriage old Jolyon and
Nicholas were talking of their wills. In the
second the twins, after a single attempt, had lapsed
into complete silence; both were rather deaf, and
the exertion of making themselves heard was too great.
Only once James broke this silence:

“I shall have to be looking about for some ground
somewhere. What arrangements have you made, Swithin?”

And Swithin, fixing him with a dreadful stare, answered:

“Don’t talk to me about such things!”

In the third carriage a disjointed conversation was
carried on in the intervals of looking out to see
how far they had got, George remarking, “Well,
it was really time that the poor old lady went.”
He didn’t believe in people living beyond seventy,
Young Nicholas replied mildly that the rule didn’t
seem to apply to the Forsytes. George said he
himself intended to commit suicide at sixty.
Young Nicholas, smiling and stroking a long chin,
didn’t think his father would like that theory;
he had made a lot of money since he was sixty.
Well, seventy was the outside limit; it was then
time, George said, for them to go and leave their
money to their children. Soames, hitherto silent,
here joined in; he had not forgotten the remark about
the ‘undertaking,’ and, lifting his eyelids
almost imperceptibly, said it was all very well for
people who never made money to talk. He himself
intended to live as long as he could. This was
a hit at George, who was notoriously hard up.
Bosinney muttered abstractedly “Hear, hear!”
and, George yawning, the conversation dropped.

Upon arriving, the coffin was borne into the chapel,
and, two by two, the mourners filed in behind it.
This guard of men, all attached to the dead by the
bond of kinship, was an impressive and singular sight
in the great city of London, with its overwhelming
diversity of life, its innumerable vocations, pleasures,
duties, its terrible hardness, its terrible call to
individualism.

The family had gathered to triumph over all this,
to give a show of tenacious unity, to illustrate gloriously
that law of property underlying the growth of their
tree, by which it had thriven and spread, trunk and
branches, the sap flowing through all, the full growth
reached at the appointed time. The spirit of
the old woman lying in her last sleep had called them
to this demonstration. It was her final appeal
to that unity which had been their strength—­it
was her final triumph that she had died while the
tree was yet whole.

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She was spared the watching of the branches jut out
beyond the point of balance. She could not look
into the hearts of her followers. The same law
that had worked in her, bringing her up from a tall,
straight-backed slip of a girl to a woman strong and
grown, from a woman grown to a woman old, angular,
feeble, almost witchlike, with individuality all sharpened
and sharpened, as all rounding from the world’s
contact fell off from her—­that same law
would work, was working, in the family she had watched
like a mother.

She had seen it young, and growing, she had seen it
strong and grown, and before her old eyes had time
or strength to see any more, she died. She would
have tried, and who knows but she might have kept it
young and strong, with her old fingers, her trembling
kisses—­a little longer; alas! not even
Aunt Ann could fight with Nature.

‘Pride comes before a fall!’ In accordance
with this, the greatest of Nature’s ironies,
the Forsyte family had gathered for a last proud pageant
before they fell. Their faces to right and left,
in single lines, were turned for the most part impassively
toward the ground, guardians of their thoughts; but
here and there, one looking upward, with a line between
his brows, searched to see some sight on the chapel
walls too much for him, to be listening to something
that appalled. And the responses, low-muttered,
in voices through which rose the same tone, the same
unseizable family ring, sounded weird, as though murmured
in hurried duplication by a single person.

The service in the chapel over, the mourners filed
up again to guard the body to the tomb. The
vault stood open, and, round it, men in black were
waiting.

From that high and sacred field, where thousands of
the upper middle class lay in their last sleep, the
eyes of the Forsytes travelled down across the flocks
of graves. There—­spreading to the
distance, lay London, with no sun over it, mourning
the loss of its daughter, mourning with this family,
so dear, the loss of her who was mother and guardian.
A hundred thousand spires and houses, blurred in the
great grey web of property, lay there like prostrate
worshippers before the grave of this, the oldest Forsyte
of them all.

A few words, a sprinkle of earth, the thrusting of
the coffin home, and Aunt Ann had passed to her last
rest.

Round the vault, trustees of that passing, the five
brothers stood, with white heads bowed; they would
see that Ann was comfortable where she was going.
Her little property must stay behind, but otherwise,
all that could be should be done....

Then severally, each stood aside, and putting on his
hat, turned back to inspect the new inscription on
the marble of the family vault:

Page 71

Soon perhaps, someone else would be wanting an inscription.
It was strange and intolerable, for they had not
thought somehow, that Forsytes could die. And
one and all they had a longing to get away from this
painfulness, this ceremony which had reminded them
of things they could not bear to think about—­to
get away quickly and go about their business and forget.

It was cold, too; the wind, like some slow, disintegrating
force, blowing up the hill over the graves, struck
them with its chilly breath; they began to split into
groups, and as quickly as possible to fill the waiting
carriages.

Swithin said he should go back to lunch at Timothy’s,
and he offered to take anybody with him in his brougham.
It was considered a doubtful privilege to drive with
Swithin in his brougham, which was not a large one;
nobody accepted, and he went off alone. James
and Roger followed immediately after; they also would
drop in to lunch. The others gradually melted
away, Old Jolyon taking three nephews to fill up his
carriage; he had a want of those young faces.

Soames, who had to arrange some details in the cemetery
office, walked away with Bosinney. He had much
to talk over with him, and, having finished his business,
they strolled to Hampstead, lunched together at the
Spaniard’s Inn, and spent a long time in going
into practical details connected with the building
of the house; they then proceeded to the tram-line,
and came as far as the Marble Arch, where Bosinney
went off to Stanhope Gate to see June.

Soames felt in excellent spirits when he arrived home,
and confided to Irene at dinner that he had had a
good talk with Bosinney, who really seemed a sensible
fellow; they had had a capital walk too, which had
done his liver good—­he had been short of
exercise for a long time—­and altogether
a very satisfactory day. If only it hadn’t
been for poor Aunt Ann, he would have taken her to
the theatre; as it was, they must make the best of
an evening at home.

“The Buccaneer asked after you more than once,”
he said suddenly. And moved by some inexplicable
desire to assert his proprietorship, he rose from
his chair and planted a kiss on his wife’s shoulder.

PART II

CHAPTER I

PROGRESS OF THE HOUSE

The winter had been an open one. Things in the
trade were slack; and as Soames had reflected before
making up his mind, it had been a good time for building.
The shell of the house at Robin Hill was thus completed
by the end of April.

Now that there was something to be seen for his money,
he had been coming down once, twice, even three times
a week, and would mouse about among the debris for
hours, careful never to soil his clothes, moving silently
through the unfinished brickwork of doorways, or circling
round the columns in the central court.

Page 72

And he would stand before them for minutes’
together, as though peering into the real quality
of their substance.

On April 30 he had an appointment with Bosinney to
go over the accounts, and five minutes before the
proper time he entered the tent which the architect
had pitched for himself close to the old oak tree.

The accounts were already prepared on a folding table,
and with a nod Soames sat down to study them.
It was some time before he raised his head.

“I can’t make them out,” he said
at last; “they come to nearly seven hundred
more than they ought”

After a glance at Bosinney’s face he went on
quickly:

“If you only make a firm stand against these
builder chaps you’ll get them down. They
stick you with everything if you don’t look sharp....
Take ten per cent. off all round. I shan’t
mind it’s coming out a hundred or so over the
mark!”

Bosinney shook his head:

“I’ve taken off every farthing I can!”

Soames pushed back the table with a movement of anger,
which sent the account sheets fluttering to the ground.

“Then all I can say is,” he flustered
out, “you’ve made a pretty mess of it!”

“I’ve told you a dozen times,” Bosinney
answered sharply, “that there’d be extras.
I’ve pointed them out to you over and over again!”

“I know that,” growled Soames: “I
shouldn’t have objected to a ten pound note
here and there. How was I to know that by ‘extras’
you meant seven hundred pounds?”

The qualities of both men had contributed to this
not-inconsiderable discrepancy. On the one hand,
the architect’s devotion to his idea, to the
image of a house which he had created and believed
in—­had made him nervous of being stopped,
or forced to the use of makeshifts; on the other,
Soames’ not less true and wholehearted devotion
to the very best article that could be obtained for
the money, had rendered him averse to believing that
things worth thirteen shillings could not be bought
with twelve.

“I wish I’d never undertaken your house,”
said Bosinney suddenly. “You come down
here worrying me out of my life. You want double
the value for your money anybody else would, and now
that you’ve got a house that for its size is
not to be beaten in the county, you don’t want
to pay for it. If you’re anxious to be
off your bargain, I daresay I can find the balance
above the estimates myself, but I’m d——­d
if I do another stroke of work for you!”

Soames regained his composure. Knowing that
Bosinney had no capital, he regarded this as a wild
suggestion. He saw, too, that he would be kept
indefinitely out of this house on which he had set
his heart, and just at the crucial point when the
architect’s personal care made all the difference.
In the meantime there was Irene to be thought of!
She had been very queer lately. He really believed
it was only because she had taken to Bosinney that
she tolerated the idea of the house at all. It
would not do to make an open breach with her.

Page 73

“You needn’t get into a rage,” he
said. “If I’m willing to put up with
it, I suppose you needn’t cry out. All
I meant was that when you tell me a thing is going
to cost so much, I like to—­well, in fact,
I—­like to know where I am.”

“Look here!” said Bosinney, and Soames
was both annoyed and surprised by the shrewdness of
his glance. “You’ve got my services
dirt cheap. For the kind of work I’ve
put into this house, and the amount of time I’ve
given to it, you’d have had to pay Littlemaster
or some other fool four times as much. What
you want, in fact, is a first-rate man for a fourth-rate
fee, and that’s exactly what you’ve got!”

Soames saw that he really meant what he said, and,
angry though he was, the consequences of a row rose
before him too vividly. He saw his house unfinished,
his wife rebellious, himself a laughingstock.

“Let’s go over it,” he said sulkily,
“and see how the money’s gone.”

“Very well,” assented Bosinney.
“But we’ll hurry up, if you don’t
mind. I have to get back in time to take June
to the theatre.”

Soames cast a stealthy look at him, and said:
“Coming to our place, I suppose to meet her?”
He was always coming to their place!

There had been rain the night before-a spring rain,
and the earth smelt of sap and wild grasses.
The warm, soft breeze swung the leaves and the golden
buds of the old oak tree, and in the sunshine the blackbirds
were whistling their hearts out.

It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an
ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing
that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves
or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows
not what. The earth gave forth a fainting warmth,
stealing up through the chilly garment in which winter
had wrapped her. It was her long caress of invitation,
to draw men down to lie within her arms, to roll their
bodies on her, and put their lips to her breast.

On just such a day as this Soames had got from Irene
the promise he had asked her for so often. Seated
on the fallen trunk of a tree, he had promised for
the twentieth time that if their marriage were not
a success, she should be as free as if she had never
married him!

“Do you swear it?” she had said.
A few days back she had reminded him of that oath.
He had answered: “Nonsense! I couldn’t
have sworn any such thing!” By some awkward
fatality he remembered it now. What queer things
men would swear for the sake of women! He would
have sworn it at any time to gain her! He would
swear it now, if thereby he could touch her—­but
nobody could touch her, she was cold-hearted!

And memories crowded on him with the fresh, sweet
savour of the spring wind-memories of his courtship.

Page 74

In the spring of the year 1881 he was visiting his
old school-fellow and client, George Liversedge, of
Branksome, who, with the view of developing his pine-woods
in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth, had placed the
formation of the company necessary to the scheme in
Soames’s hands. Mrs. Liversedge, with
a sense of the fitness of things, had given a musical
tea in his honour. Later in the course of this
function, which Soames, no musician, had regarded
as an unmitigated bore, his eye had been caught by
the face of a girl dressed in mourning, standing by
herself. The lines of her tall, as yet rather
thin figure, showed through the wispy, clinging stuff
of her black dress, her black-gloved hands were crossed
in front of her, her lips slightly parted, and her
large, dark eyes wandered from face to face.
Her hair, done low on her neck, seemed to gleam above
her black collar like coils of shining metal.
And as Soames stood looking at her, the sensation
that most men have felt at one time or another went
stealing through him—­a peculiar satisfaction
of the senses, a peculiar certainty, which novelists
and old ladies call love at first sight. Still
stealthily watching her, he at once made his way to
his hostess, and stood doggedly waiting for the music
to cease.

“Who is that girl with yellow hair and dark
eyes?” he asked.

“That—­oh! Irene Heron.
Her father, Professor Heron, died this year.
She lives with her stepmother. She’s a
nice girl, a pretty girl, but no money!”

“Introduce me, please,” said Soames.

It was very little that he found to say, nor did he
find her responsive to that little. But he went
away with the resolution to see her again. He
effected his object by chance, meeting her on the pier
with her stepmother, who had the habit of walking
there from twelve to one of a forenoon. Soames
made this lady’s acquaintance with alacrity,
nor was it long before he perceived in her the ally
he was looking for. His keen scent for the commercial
side of family life soon told him that Irene cost
her stepmother more than the fifty pounds a year she
brought her; it also told him that Mrs. Heron, a woman
yet in the prime of life, desired to be married again.
The strange ripening beauty of her stepdaughter stood
in the way of this desirable consummation. And
Soames, in his stealthy tenacity, laid his plans.

He left Bournemouth without having given himself away,
but in a month’s time came back, and this time
he spoke, not to the girl, but to her stepmother.
He had made up his mind, he said; he would wait any
time. And he had long to wait, watching Irene
bloom, the lines of her young figure softening, the
stronger blood deepening the gleam of her eyes, and
warming her face to a creamy glow; and at each visit
he proposed to her, and when that visit was at an
end, took her refusal away with him, back to London,
sore at heart, but steadfast and silent as the grave.
He tried to come at the secret springs of her resistance;

Page 75

only once had he a gleam of light. It was at
one of those assembly dances, which afford the only
outlet to the passions of the population of seaside
watering-places. He was sitting with her in an
embrasure, his senses tingling with the contact of
the waltz. She had looked at him over her, slowly
waving fan; and he had lost his head. Seizing
that moving wrist, he pressed his lips to the flesh
of her arm. And she had shuddered—­to
this day he had not forgotten that shudder—­nor
the look so passionately averse she had given him.

A year after that she had yielded. What had
made her yield he could never make out; and from Mrs.
Heron, a woman of some diplomatic talent, he learnt
nothing. Once after they were married he asked
her, “What made you refuse me so often?”
She had answered by a strange silence. An enigma
to him from the day that he first saw her, she was
an enigma to him still....

Bosinney was waiting for him at the door; and on his
rugged, good-looking, face was a queer, yearning,
yet happy look, as though he too saw a promise of
bliss in the spring sky, sniffed a coming happiness
in the spring air. Soames looked at him waiting
there. What was the matter with the fellow that
he looked so happy? What was he waiting for
with that smile on his lips and in his eyes?
Soames could not see that for which Bosinney was waiting
as he stood there drinking in the flower-scented wind.
And once more he felt baffled in the presence of this
man whom by habit he despised. He hastened on
to the house.

“The only colour for those tiles,” he
heard Bosinney say,—­“is ruby with
a grey tint in the stuff, to give a transparent effect.
I should like Irene’s opinion. I’m
ordering the purple leather curtains for the doorway
of this court; and if you distemper the drawing-room
ivory cream over paper, you’ll get an illusive
look. You want to aim all through the decorations
at what I call charm.”

Soames said: “You mean that my wife has
charm!”

Bosinney evaded the question.

“You should have a clump of iris plants in the
centre of that court.”

Soames smiled superciliously.

“I’ll look into Beech’s some time,”
he said, “and see what’s appropriate!”

They found little else to say to each other, but on
the way to the Station Soames asked:

“I suppose you find Irene very artistic.”

“Yes.” The abrupt answer was as distinct
a snub as saying: “If you want to discuss
her you can do it with someone else!”

And the slow, sulky anger Soames had felt all the
afternoon burned the brighter within him.

Neither spoke again till they were close to the Station,
then Soames asked:

“When do you expect to have finished?”

“By the end of June, if you really wish me to
decorate as well.”

Soames nodded. “But you quite understand,”
he said, “that the house is costing me a lot
beyond what I contemplated. I may as well tell
you that I should have thrown it up, only I’m
not in the habit of giving up what I’ve set
my mind on.”

Page 76

Bosinney made no reply. And Soames gave him
askance a look of dogged dislike—­for in
spite of his fastidious air and that supercilious,
dandified taciturnity, Soames, with his set lips and
squared chin, was not unlike a bulldog....

When, at seven o’clock that evening, June arrived
at 62, Montpellier Square, the maid Bilson told her
that Mr. Bosinney was in the drawing-room; the mistress—­she
said—­was dressing, and would be down in
a minute. She would tell her that Miss June was
here.

She took off her cloak, and Bilson, with an understanding
look, did not even open the drawing-room door for
her, but ran downstairs.

June paused for a moment to look at herself in the
little old-fashioned silver mirror above the oaken
rug chest—­a slim, imperious young figure,
with a small resolute face, in a white frock, cut moon-shaped
at the base of a neck too slender for her crown of
twisted red-gold hair.

She opened the drawing-room door softly, meaning to
take him by surprise. The room was filled with
a sweet hot scent of flowering azaleas.

She took a long breath of the perfume, and heard Bosinney’s
voice, not in the room, but quite close, saying.

“Ah! there were such heaps of things I wanted
to talk about, and now we shan’t have time!”

Irene’s voice answered: “Why not
at dinner?”

“How can one talk....”

June’s first thought was to go away, but instead
she crossed to the long window opening on the little
court. It was from there that the scent of the
azaleas came, and, standing with their backs to her,
their faces buried in the golden-pink blossoms, stood
her lover and Irene.

Silent but unashamed, with flaming cheeks and angry
eyes, the girl watched.

“Come on Sunday by yourself—­We can
go over the house together.”

June saw Irene look up at him through her screen of
blossoms. It was not the look of a coquette,
but—­far worse to the watching girl—­of
a woman fearful lest that look should say too much.

“I’ve promised to go for a drive with
Uncle....”

“The big one! Make him bring you; it’s
only ten miles—­the very thing for his horses.”

“Poor old Uncle Swithin!”

A wave of the azalea scent drifted into June’s
face; she felt sick and dizzy.

“Do! ah! do!”

“But why?”

“I must see you there—­I thought you’d
like to help me....”

The answer seemed to the girl to come softly with
a tremble from amongst the blossoms: “So
I do!”

And she stepped into the open space of the window.

“How stuffy it is here!” she said; “I
can’t bear this scent!”

Her eyes, so angry and direct, swept both their faces.

“Were you talking about the house? I haven’t
seen it yet, you know—­shall we all go on
Sunday?"’

Page 77

From Irene’s face the colour had flown.

“I am going for a drive that day with Uncle
Swithin,” she answered.

“Uncle Swithin! What does he matter?
You can throw him over!”

“I am not in the habit of throwing people over!”

There was a sound of footsteps and June saw Soames
standing just behind her.

“Well! if you are all ready,” said Irene,
looking from one to the other with a strange smile,
“dinner is too!”

CHAPTER II

JUNE’S TREAT

Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another,
and the men.

In silence the soup was finished—­excellent,
if a little thick; and fish was brought. In
silence it was handed.

Bosinney ventured: “It’s the first
spring day.”

Irene echoed softly: “Yes—­the
first spring day.”

“Spring!” said June: “there
isn’t a breath of air!” No one replied.

The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover.
And Bilson brought champagne, a bottle swathed around
the neck with white....

Soames said: “You’ll find it dry.”

Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs.
They were refused by June, and silence fell.

But June again refused, so they were borne away.
And then Irene asked:
“Phil, have you heard my blackbird?”

Bosinney answered: “Rather—­he’s
got a hunting-song. As I came round I heard
him in the Square.”

“He’s such a darling!”

“Salad, sir?” Spring chicken was removed.

But Soames was speaking: “The asparagus
is very poor. Bosinney, glass of sherry with
your sweet? June, you’re drinking nothing!”

June said: “You know I never do.
Wine’s such horrid stuff!”

An apple charlotte came upon a silver dish, and smilingly
Irene said:
“The azaleas are so wonderful this year!”

To this Bosinney murmured: “Wonderful!
The scent’s extraordinary!”

June said: “How can you like the scent?
Sugar, please, Bilson.”

Sugar was handed her, and Soames remarked: “This
charlottes good!”

The charlotte was removed. Long silence followed.
Irene, beckoning, said: “Take out the
azalea, Bilson. Miss June can’t bear the
scent.”

“No; let it stay,” said June.

Olives from France, with Russian caviare, were placed
on little plates. And Soames remarked: “Why
can’t we have the Spanish?” But no one
answered.

The olives were removed. Lifting her tumbler
June demanded: “Give me some water, please.”
Water was given her. A silver tray was brought,
with German plums. There was a lengthy pause.
In perfect harmony all were eating them.

Bosinney counted up the stones: “This year—­next
year—­some time.”

Irene finished softly: “Never! There
was such a glorious sunset. The sky’s all
ruby still—­so beautiful!”

Irene, from the window, murmured: “Such
a lovely night! The stars are coming out!”

Soames added: “Well, I hope you’ll
both enjoy yourselves.”

From the door June answered: “Thanks.
Come, Phil.”

Bosinney cried: “I’m coming.”

Soames smiled a sneering smile, and said: “I
wish you luck!”

And at the door Irene watched them go.

Bosinney called: “Good night!”

“Good night!” she answered softly....

June made her lover take her on the top of a ’bus,
saying she wanted air, and there sat silent, with
her face to the breeze.

The driver turned once or twice, with the intention
of venturing a remark, but thought better of it.
They were a lively couple! The spring had got
into his blood, too; he felt the need for letting steam
escape, and clucked his tongue, flourishing his whip,
wheeling his horses, and even they, poor things, had
smelled the spring, and for a brief half-hour spurned
the pavement with happy hoofs.

The whole town was alive; the boughs, curled upward
with their decking of young leaves, awaited some gift
the breeze could bring. New-lighted lamps were
gaining mastery, and the faces of the crowd showed
pale under that glare, while on high the great white
clouds slid swiftly, softly, over the purple sky.

Men in, evening dress had thrown back overcoats, stepping
jauntily up the steps of Clubs; working folk loitered;
and women—­those women who at that time
of night are solitary—­solitary and moving
eastward in a stream—­swung slowly along,
with expectation in their gait, dreaming of good wine
and a good supper, or—­for an unwonted minute,
of kisses given for love.

Those countless figures, going their ways under the
lamps and the moving-sky, had one and all received
some restless blessing from the stir of spring.
And one and all, like those clubmen with their opened
coats, had shed something of caste, and creed, and
custom, and by the cock of their hats, the pace of
their walk, their laughter, or their silence, revealed
their common kinship under the passionate heavens.

Bosinney and June entered the theatre in silence,
and mounted to their seats in the upper boxes.
The piece had just begun, and the half-darkened house,
with its rows of creatures peering all one way, resembled
a great garden of flowers turning their faces to the
sun.

Page 79

June had never before been in the upper boxes.
From the age of fifteen she had habitually accompanied
her grandfather to the stalls, and not common stalls,
but the best seats in the house, towards the centre
of the third row, booked by old Jolyon, at Grogan
and Boyne’s, on his way home from the City,
long before the day; carried in his overcoat pocket,
together with his cigar-case and his old kid gloves,
and handed to June to keep till the appointed night.
And in those stalls—­an erect old figure
with a serene white head, a little figure, strenuous
and eager, with a red-gold head—­they would
sit through every kind of play, and on the way home
old Jolyon would say of the principal actor: “Oh,
he’s a poor stick! You should have seen
little Bobson!”

She had looked forward to this evening with keen delight;
it was stolen, chaperone-less, undreamed of at Stanhope
Gate, where she was supposed to be at Soames’.
She had expected reward for her subterfuge, planned
for her lover’s sake; she had expected it to
break up the thick, chilly cloud, and make the relations
between them which of late had been so puzzling, so
tormenting—­sunny and simple again as they
had been before the winter. She had come with
the intention of saying something definite; and she
looked at the stage with a furrow between her brows,
seeing nothing, her hands squeezed together in her
lap. A swarm of jealous suspicions stung and
stung her.

If Bosinney was conscious of her trouble he made no
sign.

The curtain dropped. The first act had come
to an end.

“It’s awfully hot here!” said the
girl; “I should like to go out.”

She was very white, and she knew—­for with
her nerves thus sharpened she saw everything—­that
he was both uneasy and compunctious.

At the back of the theatre an open balcony hung over
the street; she took possession of this, and stood
leaning there without a word, waiting for him to begin.

At last she could bear it no longer.

“I want to say something to you, Phil,”
she said.

“Yes?”

The defensive tone of his voice brought the colour
flying to her cheek, the words flying to her lips:
“You don’t give me a chance to be nice
to you; you haven’t for ages now!”

Bosinney stared down at the street. He made
no answer....

June cried passionately: “You know I want
to do everything for you—­that
I want to be everything to you....”

A hum rose from the street, and, piercing it with
a sharp ‘ping,’ the bell sounded for the
raising of the curtain. June did not stir.
A desperate struggle was going on within her.
Should she put everything to the proof? Should
she challenge directly that influence, that attraction
which was driving him away from her? It was her
nature to challenge, and she said: “Phil,
take me to see the house on Sunday!”

With a smile quivering and breaking on her lips, and
trying, how hard, not to show that she was watching,
she searched his face, saw it waver and hesitate,
saw a troubled line come between his brows, the blood
rush into his face. He answered: “Not
Sunday, dear; some other day!”

Page 80

“Why not Sunday? I shouldn’t be
in the way on Sunday.”

He made an evident effort, and said: “I
have an engagement.”

“You are going to take....”

His eyes grew angry; he shrugged his shoulders, and
answered: “An engagement that will prevent
my taking you to see the house!”

June bit her lip till the blood came, and walked back
to her seat without another word, but she could not
help the tears of rage rolling down her face.
The house had been mercifully darkened for a crisis,
and no one could see her trouble.

Yet in this world of Forsytes let no man think himself
immune from observation.

In the third row behind, Euphemia, Nicholas’s
youngest daughter, with her married-sister, Mrs. Tweetyman,
were watching.

They reported at Timothy’s, how they had seen
June and her fiance at the theatre.

“In the stalls?” “No, not in the....”
“Oh! in the dress circle, of course.
That seemed to be quite fashionable nowadays with young
people!”

Well—­not exactly. In the....
Anyway, that engagement wouldn’t last long.
They had never seen anyone look so thunder and lightningy
as that little June! With tears of enjoyment
in their eyes, they related how she had kicked a man’s
hat as she returned to her seat in the middle of an
act, and how the man had looked. Euphemia had
a noted, silent laugh, terminating most disappointingly
in squeaks; and when Mrs. Small, holding up her hands,
said: “My dear! Kicked a ha-at?”
she let out such a number of these that she had to
be recovered with smelling-salts. As she went
away she said to Mrs. Tweetyman:

“Kicked a—­ha-at! Oh! I
shall die.”

For ‘that little June’ this evening, that
was to have been ‘her treat,’ was the
most miserable she had ever spent. God knows
she tried to stifle her pride, her suspicion, her
jealousy!

She parted from Bosinney at old Jolyon’s door
without breaking down; the feeling that her lover
must be conquered was strong enough to sustain her
till his retiring footsteps brought home the true extent
of her wretchedness.

The noiseless ‘Sankey’ let her in.
She would have slipped up to her own room, but old
Jolyon, who had heard her entrance, was in the dining-room
doorway.

“Come in and have your milk,” he said.
“It’s been kept hot for you. You’re
very late. Where have you been?”

June stood at the fireplace, with a foot on the fender
and an arm on the mantelpiece, as her grandfather
had done when he came in that night of the opera.
She was too near a breakdown to care what she told
him.

“We dined at Soames’s.”

“H’m! the man of property! His wife
there and Bosinney?”

“Yes.”

Old Jolyon’s glance was fixed on her with the
penetrating gaze from which it was difficult to hide;
but she was not looking at him, and when she turned
her face, he dropped his scrutiny at once. He
had seen enough, and too much. He bent down
to lift the cup of milk for her from the hearth, and,
turning away, grumbled: “You oughtn’t
to stay out so late; it makes you fit for nothing.”

Page 81

He was invisible now behind his paper, which he turned
with a vicious crackle; but when June came up to kiss
him, he said: “Good-night, my darling,”
in a tone so tremulous and unexpected, that it was
all the girl could do to get out of the room without
breaking into the fit of sobbing which lasted her
well on into the night.

When the door was closed, old Jolyon dropped his paper,
and stared long and anxiously in front of him.

Uneasy doubts and suspicions, the more poignant that
he felt himself powerless to check or control the
march of events, came crowding upon him.

Was the fellow going to jilt her? He longed
to go and say to him: “Look here, you sir!
Are you going to jilt my grand-daughter?” But
how could he? Knowing little or nothing, he
was yet certain, with his unerring astuteness, that
there was something going on. He suspected Bosinney
of being too much at Montpellier Square.

‘This fellow,’ he thought, ’may
not be a scamp; his face is not a bad one, but he’s
a queer fish. I don’t know what to make
of him. I shall never know what to make of him!
They tell me he works like a nigger, but I see no
good coming of it. He’s unpractical, he
has no method. When he comes here, he sits as
glum as a monkey. If I ask him what wine he’ll
have, he says: “Thanks, any wine.”
If I offer him a cigar, he smokes it as if it were
a twopenny German thing. I never see him looking
at June as he ought to look at her; and yet, he’s
not after her money. If she were to make a sign,
he’d be off his bargain to-morrow. But
she won’t—­not she! She’ll
stick to him! She’s as obstinate as fate—­She’ll
never let go!’

Sighing deeply, he turned the paper; in its columns,
perchance he might find consolation.

And upstairs in her room June sat at her open window,
where the spring wind came, after its revel across
the Park, to cool her hot cheeks and burn her heart.

CHAPTER III

DRIVE WITH SWITHIN

Two lines of a certain song in a certain famous old
school’s songbook run as follows:

’How the buttons on his blue frock shone, tra-la-la!
How he carolled and he sang, like a bird!....’

Swithin did not exactly carol and sing like a bird,
but he felt almost like endeavouring to hum a tune,
as he stepped out of Hyde Park Mansions, and contemplated
his horses drawn up before the door.

The afternoon was as balmy as a day in June, and to
complete the simile of the old song, he had put on
a blue frock-coat, dispensing with an overcoat, after
sending Adolf down three times to make sure that there
was not the least suspicion of east in the wind; and
the frock-coat was buttoned so tightly around his
personable form, that, if the buttons did not shine,
they might pardonably have done so. Majestic

Page 82

on the pavement he fitted on a pair of dog-skin gloves;
with his large bell-shaped top hat, and his great
stature and bulk he looked too primeval for a Forsyte.
His thick white hair, on which Adolf had bestowed a
touch of pomatum, exhaled the fragrance of opoponax
and cigars—­the celebrated Swithin brand,
for which he paid one hundred and forty shillings the
hundred, and of which old Jolyon had unkindly said,
he wouldn’t smoke them as a gift; they wanted
the stomach of a horse!

“Adolf!”

“Sare!”

“The new plaid rug!”

He would never teach that fellow to look smart; and
Mrs. Soames he felt sure, had an eye!

“The phaeton hood down; I am going—­to—­drive—­a—­lady!”

A pretty woman would want to show off her frock; and
well—­he was going to drive a lady!
It was like a new beginning to the good old days.

Ages since he had driven a woman! The last time,
if he remembered, it had been Juley; the poor old
soul had been as nervous as a cat the whole time,
and so put him out of patience that, as he dropped
her in the Bayswater Road, he had said: “Well
I’m d—–­d if I ever drive you
again!” And he never had, not he!

Going up to his horses’ heads, he examined their
bits; not that he knew anything about bits—­he
didn’t pay his coachman sixty pounds a year
to do his work for him, that had never been his principle.
Indeed, his reputation as a horsey man rested mainly
on the fact that once, on Derby Day, he had been welshed
by some thimble-riggers. But someone at the
Club, after seeing him drive his greys up to the door—­he
always drove grey horses, you got more style for the
money, some thought—­had called him ‘Four-in-hand
Forsyte.’ The name having reached his ears
through that fellow Nicholas Treffry, old Jolyon’s
dead partner, the great driving man notorious for
more carriage accidents than any man in the kingdom—­Swithin
had ever after conceived it right to act up to it.
The name had taken his fancy, not because he had
ever driven four-in-hand, or was ever likely to, but
because of something distinguished in the sound.
Four-in-hand Forsyte! Not bad! Born too
soon, Swithin had missed his vocation. Coming
upon London twenty years later, he could not have
failed to have become a stockbroker, but at the time
when he was obliged to select, this great profession
had not as yet became the chief glory of the upper-middle
class. He had literally been forced into land
agency.

Once in the driving seat, with the reins handed to
him, and blinking over his pale old cheeks in the
full sunlight, he took a slow look round—­Adolf
was already up behind; the cockaded groom at the horses’
heads stood ready to let go; everything was prepared
for the signal, and Swithin gave it. The equipage
dashed forward, and before you could say Jack Robinson,
with a rattle and flourish drew up at Soames’
door.

Page 83

Irene came out at once, and stepped in—­he
afterward described it at Timothy’s—­“as
light as—­er—­Taglioni, no fuss
about it, no wanting this or wanting that;”
and above all, Swithin dwelt on this, staring at Mrs.
Septimus in a way that disconcerted her a good deal,
“no silly nervousness!” To Aunt Hester
he portrayed Irene’s hat. “Not one
of your great flopping things, sprawling about, and
catching the dust, that women are so fond of nowadays,
but a neat little—­” he made a circular
motion of his hand, “white veil—­capital
taste.”

“What was it made of?” inquired Aunt Hester,
who manifested a languid but permanent excitement
at any mention of dress.

“Made of?” returned Swithin; “now
how should I know?”

He sank into silence so profound that Aunt Hester
began to be afraid he had fallen into a trance.
She did not try to rouse him herself, it not being
her custom.

‘I wish somebody would come,’ she thought;
’I don’t like the look of him!’

But suddenly Swithin returned to life. “Made
of” he wheezed out slowly, “what should
it be made of?”

They had not gone four miles before Swithin received
the impression that Irene liked driving with him.
Her face was so soft behind that white veil, and
her dark eyes shone so in the spring light, and whenever
he spoke she raised them to him and smiled.

On Saturday morning Soames had found her at her writing-table
with a note written to Swithin, putting him off.
Why did she want to put him off? he asked.
She might put her own people off when she liked, he
would not have her putting off his people!

She had looked at him intently, had torn up the note,
and said: “Very well!”

And then she began writing another. He took
a casual glance presently, and saw that it was addressed
to Bosinney.

“What are you writing to him about?” he
asked.

Irene, looking at him again with that intent look,
said quietly: “Something he wanted me to
do for him!”

“Humph!” said Soames,—­“Commissions!”

“You’ll have your work cut out if you
begin that sort of thing!” He said no more.

Swithin opened his eyes at the mention of Robin Hill;
it was a long way for his horses, and he always dined
at half-past seven, before the rush at the Club began;
the new chef took more trouble with an early dinner—­a
lazy rascal!

He would like to have a look at the house, however.
A house appealed to any Forsyte, and especially to
one who had been an auctioneer. After all he
said the distance was nothing. When he was a
younger man he had had rooms at Richmond for many
years, kept his carriage and pair there, and drove
them up and down to business every day of his life.

Four-in-hand Forsyte they called him! His T-cart,
his horses had been known from Hyde Park Corner to
the Star and Garter. The Duke of Z.... wanted
to get hold of them, would have given him double the
money, but he had kept them; know a good thing when
you have it, eh? A look of solemn pride came
portentously on his shaven square old face, he rolled
his head in his stand-up collar, like a turkey-cock
preening himself.

Page 84

She was really—­a charming woman!
He enlarged upon her frock afterwards to Aunt Juley,
who held up her hands at his way of putting it.

Fitted her like a skin—­tight as a drum;
that was how he liked ’em, all of a piece, none
of your daverdy, scarecrow women! He gazed at
Mrs. Septimus Small, who took after James—­long
and thin.

“There’s style about her,” he went
on, “fit for a king! And she’s so
quiet with it too!”

“She seems to have made quite a conquest of
you, any way,” drawled Aunt Hester from her
corner.

Swithin heard extremely well when anybody attacked
him.

“What’s that?” he said. “I
know a—­pretty—­woman when I see
one, and all I can say is, I don’t see the young
man about that’s fit for her; but perhaps—­you—­do,
come, perhaps—­you-do!”

“Oh?” murmured Aunt Hester, “ask
Juley!”

Long before they reached Robin Hill, however, the
unaccustomed airing had made him terribly sleepy;
he drove with his eyes closed, a life-time of deportment
alone keeping his tall and bulky form from falling
askew.

Bosinney, who was watching, came out to meet them,
and all three entered the house together; Swithin
in front making play with a stout gold-mounted Malacca
cane, put into his hand by Adolf, for his knees were
feeling the effects of their long stay in the same
position. He had assumed his fur coat, to guard
against the draughts of the unfinished house.

The staircase—­he said—­was handsome!
the baronial style! They would want some statuary
about! He came to a standstill between the columns
of the doorway into the inner court, and held out
his cane inquiringly.

What was this to be—­this vestibule, or
whatever they called it? But gazing at the skylight,
inspiration came to him.

“Ah! the billiard-room!”

When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in
the centre, he turned to Irene:

“Waste this on plants? You take my advice
and have a billiard table here!”

Irene smiled. She had lifted her veil, banding
it like a nun’s coif across her forehead, and
the smile of her dark eyes below this seemed to Swithin
more charming than ever. He nodded. She
would take his advice he saw.

He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms,
which he described as “spacious”; but
fell into such raptures as he permitted to a man of
his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which he descended
by stone steps, Bosinney going first with a light.

“You’ll have room here,” he said,
“for six or seven hundred dozen—­a
very pooty little cellar!”

Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the
house from the copse below, Swithin came to a stop.

“There’s a fine view from here,”
he remarked; “you haven’t such a thing
as a chair?”

A chair was brought him from Bosinney’s tent.

“You go down,” he said blandly; “you
two! I’ll sit here and look at the view.”

Page 85

He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and
upright, with one hand stretched out, resting on the
nob of his cane, the other planted on his knee; his
fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing with its flat
top the pale square of his face; his stare, very blank,
fixed on the landscape.

He nodded to them as they went off down through the
fields. He was, indeed, not sorry to be left
thus for a quiet moment of reflection. The air
was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the prospect
a fine one, a remarka.... His head fell a little
to one side; he jerked it up and thought: Odd!
He—­ah! They were waving to him from
the bottom! He put up his hand, and moved it
more than once. They were active—­the
prospect was remar.... His head fell to the left,
he jerked it up at once; it fell to the right.
It remained there; he was asleep.

And asleep, a sentinel on the—­top of the
rise, he appeared to rule over this prospect—­remarkable—­like
some image blocked out by the special artist, of primeval
Forsytes in pagan days, to record the domination of
mind over matter!

And all the unnumbered generations of his yeoman ancestors,
wont of a Sunday to stand akimbo surveying their little
plots of land, their grey unmoving eyes hiding their
instinct with its hidden roots of violence, their
instinct for possession to the exclusion of all the
world—­all these unnumbered generations
seemed to sit there with him on the top of the rise.

But from him, thus slumbering, his jealous Forsyte
spirit travelled far, into God-knows-what jungle of
fancies; with those two young people, to see what
they were doing down there in the copse—­in
the copse where the spring was running riot with the
scent of sap and bursting buds, the song of birds
innumerable, a carpet of bluebells and sweet growing
things, and the sun caught like gold in the tops of
the trees; to see what they were doing, walking along
there so close together on the path that was too narrow;
walking along there so close that they were always
touching; to watch Irene’s eyes, like dark thieves,
stealing the heart out of the spring. And a
great unseen chaperon, his spirit was there, stopping
with them to look at the little furry corpse of a
mole, not dead an hour, with his mushroom-and-silver
coat untouched by the rain or dew; watching over Irene’s
bent head, and the soft look of her pitying eyes; and
over that young man’s head, gazing at her so
hard, so strangely. Walking on with them, too,
across the open space where a wood-cutter had been
at work, where the bluebells were trampled down, and
a trunk had swayed and staggered down from its gashed
stump. Climbing it with them, over, and on to
the very edge of the copse, whence there stretched
an undiscovered country, from far away in which came
the sounds, ‘Cuckoo-cuckoo!’

Silent, standing with them there, and uneasy at their
silence! Very queer, very strange!

Then back again, as though guilty, through the wood—­back
to the cutting, still silent, amongst the songs of
birds that never ceased, and the wild scent—­hum!
what was it—­like that herb they put in—­back
to the log across the path....

Page 86

And then unseen, uneasy, flapping above them, trying
to make noises, his Forsyte spirit watched her balanced
on the log, her pretty figure swaying, smiling down
at that young man gazing up with such strange, shining
eyes, slipping now—­a—­ah! falling,
o—­oh! sliding—­down his breast;
her soft, warm body clutched, her head bent back from
his lips; his kiss; her recoil; his cry: “You
must know—­I love you!” Must know—­indeed,
a pretty...? Love! Hah!

Swithin awoke; virtue had gone out of him. He
had a taste in his mouth. Where was he?

Damme! He had been asleep!

He had dreamed something about a new soup, with a
taste of mint in it.

Those young people—­where had they got to?
His left leg had pins and needles.

“Adolf!” The rascal was not there; the
rascal was asleep somewhere.

He stood up, tall, square, bulky in his fur, looking
anxiously down over the fields, and presently he saw
them coming.

Irene was in front; that young fellow—­what
had they nicknamed him—­’The Buccaneer?’
looked precious hangdog there behind her; had got a
flea in his ear, he shouldn’t wonder.
Serve him right, taking her down all that way to look
at the house! The proper place to look at a house
from was the lawn.

They saw him. He extended his arm, and moved
it spasmodically to encourage them. But they
had stopped. What were they standing there for,
talking—­talking? They came on again.
She had been, giving him a rub, he had not the least
doubt of it, and no wonder, over a house like that—­a
great ugly thing, not the sort of house he was accustomed
to.

He looked intently at their faces, with his pale,
immovable stare. That young man looked very
queer!

“You’ll never make anything of this!”
he said tartly, pointing at the mansion;—­“too
newfangled!”

Bosinney gazed at him as though he had not heard;
and Swithin afterwards described him to Aunt Hester
as “an extravagant sort of fellow very odd way
of looking at you—­a bumpy beggar!”

What gave rise to this sudden piece of psychology
he did not state; possibly Bosinney’s, prominent
forehead and cheekbones and chin, or something hungry
in his face, which quarrelled with Swithin’s
conception of the calm satiety that should characterize
the perfect gentleman.

He brightened up at the mention of tea. He had
a contempt for tea—­his brother Jolyon had
been in tea; made a lot of money by it—­but
he was so thirsty, and had such a taste in his mouth,
that he was prepared to drink anything. He longed
to inform Irene of the taste in his mouth—­she
was so sympathetic—­but it would not be
a distinguished thing to do; he rolled his tongue
round, and faintly smacked it against his palate.

In a far corner of the tent Adolf was bending his
cat-like moustaches over a kettle. He left it
at once to draw the cork of a pint-bottle of champagne.
Swithin smiled, and, nodding at Bosinney, said:
“Why, you’re quite a Monte Cristo!”
This celebrated novel—­one of the half-dozen
he had read—­had produced an extraordinary
impression on his mind.

Page 87

Taking his glass from the table, he held it away from
him to scrutinize the colour; thirsty as he was, it
was not likely that he was going to drink trash!
Then, placing it to his lips, he took a sip.

“A very nice wine,” he said at last, passing
it before his nose; “not the equal of my Heidsieck!”

It was at this moment that the idea came to him which
he afterwards imparted at Timothy’s in this
nutshell: “I shouldn’t wonder a bit
if that architect chap were sweet upon Mrs. Soames!”

And from this moment his pale, round eyes never ceased
to bulge with the interest of his discovery.

“The fellow,” he said to Mrs. Septimus,
“follows her about with his eyes like a dog—­the
bumpy beggar! I don’t wonder at it—­she’s
a very charming woman, and, I should say, the pink
of discretion!” A vague consciousness of perfume
caging about Irene, like that from a flower with half-closed
petals and a passionate heart, moved him to the creation
of this image. “But I wasn’t sure
of it,” he said, “till I saw him pick up
her handkerchief.”

Mrs. Small’s eyes boiled with excitement.

“And did he give it her back?” she asked.

“Give it back?” said Swithin: “I
saw him slobber on it when he thought I wasn’t
looking!”

Mrs. Small gasped—­too interested to speak.

“But she gave him no encouragement,” went
on Swithin; he stopped, and stared for a minute or
two in the way that alarmed Aunt Hester so—­he
had suddenly recollected that, as they were starting
back in the phaeton, she had given Bosinney her hand
a second time, and let it stay there too....
He had touched his horses smartly with the whip, anxious
to get her all to himself. But she had looked
back, and she had not answered his first question;
neither had he been able to see her face—­she
had kept it hanging down.

There is somewhere a picture, which Swithin has not
seen, of a man sitting on a rock, and by him, immersed
in the still, green water, a sea-nymph lying on her
back, with her hand on her naked breast. She
has a half-smile on her face—­a smile of
hopeless surrender and of secret joy.

Seated by Swithin’s side, Irene may have been
smiling like that.

When, warmed by champagne, he had her all to himself,
he unbosomed himself of his wrongs; of his smothered
resentment against the new chef at the club; his worry
over the house in Wigmore Street, where the rascally
tenant had gone bankrupt through helping his brother-in-law
as if charity did not begin at home; of his deafness,
too, and that pain he sometimes got in his right side.
She listened, her eyes swimming under their lids.
He thought she was thinking deeply of his troubles,
and pitied himself terribly. Yet in his fur
coat, with frogs across the breast, his top hat aslant,
driving this beautiful woman, he had never felt more
distinguished.

Page 88

A coster, however, taking his girl for a Sunday airing,
seemed to have the same impression about himself.
This person had flogged his donkey into a gallop
alongside, and sat, upright as a waxwork, in his shallopy
chariot, his chin settled pompously on a red handkerchief,
like Swithin’s on his full cravat; while his
girl, with the ends of a fly-blown boa floating out
behind, aped a woman of fashion. Her swain moved
a stick with a ragged bit of string dangling from
the end, reproducing with strange fidelity the circular
flourish of Swithin’s whip, and rolled his head
at his lady with a leer that had a weird likeness to
Swithin’s primeval stare.

Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian’s
presence, Swithin presently took it into his head
that he was being guyed. He laid his whip-lash
across the mares flank. The two chariots, however,
by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast.
Swithin’s yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised
his whip to lash the costermonger, but was saved from
so far forgetting his dignity by a special intervention
of Providence. A carriage driving out through
a gate forced phaeton and donkey-cart into proximity;
the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle skidded, and
was overturned.

Swithin did not look round. On no account would
he have pulled up to help the ruffian. Serve
him right if he had broken his neck!

But he could not if he would. The greys had
taken alarm. The phaeton swung from side to
side, and people raised frightened faces as they went
dashing past. Swithin’s great arms, stretched
at full length, tugged at the reins. His cheeks
were puffed, his lips compressed, his swollen face
was of a dull, angry red.

Irene had her hand on the rail, and at every lurch
she gripped it tightly. Swithin heard her ask:

“Are we going to have an accident, Uncle Swithin?”

He gasped out between his pants: “It’s
nothing; a—­little fresh!”

“I’ve never been in an accident.”

“Don’t you move!” He took a look
at her. She was smiling, perfectly calm.
“Sit still,” he repeated. “Never
fear, I’ll get you home!”

And in the midst of all his terrible efforts, he was
surprised to hear her answer in a voice not like her
own:

“I don’t care if I never get home!”

The carriage giving a terrific lurch, Swithin’s
exclamation was jerked back into his throat.
The horses, winded by the rise of a hill, now steadied
to a trot, and finally stopped of their own accord.

“When”—­Swithin described it
at Timothy’s—­“I pulled ’em
up, there she was as cool as myself. God bless
my soul! she behaved as if she didn’t care whether
she broke her neck or not! What was it she said:
’I don’t care if I never get home?”
Leaning over the handle of his cane, he wheezed out,
to Mrs. Small’s terror: “And I’m
not altogether surprised, with a finickin’ feller
like young Soames for a husband!”

Page 89

It did not occur to him to wonder what Bosinney had
done after they had left him there alone; whether
he had gone wandering about like the dog to which
Swithin had compared him; wandering down to that copse
where the spring was still in riot, the cuckoo still
calling from afar; gone down there with her handkerchief
pressed to lips, its fragrance mingling with the scent
of mint and thyme. Gone down there with such
a wild, exquisite pain in his heart that he could
have cried out among the trees. Or what, indeed,
the fellow had done. In fact, till he came to
Timothy’s, Swithin had forgotten all about him.

CHAPTER IV

JAMES GOES TO SEE FOR HIMSELF

Those ignorant of Forsyte ’Change would not,
perhaps, foresee all the stir made by Irene’s
visit to the house.

After Swithin had related at Timothy’s the full
story of his memorable drive, the same, with the least
suspicion of curiosity, the merest touch of malice,
and a real desire to do good, was passed on to June.

“And what a dreadful thing to say, my dear!”
ended Aunt Juley; “that about not going home.
What did she mean?”

It was a strange recital for the girl. She heard
it flushing painfully, and, suddenly, with a curt
handshake, took her departure.

“Almost rude!” Mrs. Small said to Aunt
Hester, when June was gone.

The proper construction was put on her reception of
the news. She was upset. Something was
therefore very wrong. Odd! She and Irene
had been such friends!

It all tallied too well with whispers and hints that
had been going about for some time past. Recollections
of Euphemia’s account of the visit to the theatre—­Mr.
Bosinney always at Soames’s? Oh, indeed!
Yes, of course, he would be about the house!
Nothing open. Only upon the greatest, the most
important provocation was it necessary to say anything
open on Forsyte ’Change. This machine was
too nicely adjusted; a hint, the merest trifling expression
of regret or doubt, sufficed to set the family soul
so sympathetic—­vibrating. No one desired
that harm should come of these vibrations—­far
from it; they were set in motion with the best intentions,
with the feeling, that each member of the family had
a stake in the family soul.

And much kindness lay at the bottom of the gossip;
it would frequently result in visits of condolence
being made, in accordance with the customs of Society,
thereby conferring a real benefit upon the sufferers,
and affording consolation to the sound, who felt pleasantly
that someone at all events was suffering from that
from which they themselves were not suffering.
In fact, it was simply a desire to keep things well-aired,
the desire which animates the Public Press, that brought
James, for instance, into communication with Mrs.
Septimus, Mrs. Septimus, with the little Nicholases,
the little Nicholases with who-knows-whom, and so on.
That great class to which they had risen, and now belonged,
demanded a certain candour, a still more certain reticence.
This combination guaranteed their membership.

Page 90

Many of the younger Forsytes felt, very naturally,
and would openly declare, that they did not want their
affairs pried into; but so powerful was the invisible,
magnetic current of family gossip, that for the life
of them they could not help knowing all about everything.
It was felt to be hopeless.

One of them (young Roger) had made an heroic attempt
to free the rising generation, by speaking of Timothy
as an ‘old cat.’ The effort had justly
recoiled upon himself; the words, coming round in the
most delicate way to Aunt Juley’s ears, were
repeated by her in a shocked voice to Mrs. Roger,
whence they returned again to young Roger.

And, after all, it was only the wrong-doers who suffered;
as, for instance, George, when he lost all that money
playing billiards; or young Roger himself, when he
was so dreadfully near to marrying the girl to whom,
it was whispered, he was already married by the laws
of Nature; or again Irene, who was thought, rather
than said, to be in danger.

All this was not only pleasant but salutary.
And it made so many hours go lightly at Timothy’s
in the Bayswater Road; so many hours that must otherwise
have been sterile and heavy to those three who lived
there; and Timothy’s was but one of hundreds
of such homes in this City of London—­the
homes of neutral persons of the secure classes, who
are out of the battle themselves, and must find their
reason for existing, in the battles of others.

But for the sweetness of family gossip, it must indeed
have been lonely there. Rumours and tales, reports,
surmises—­were they not the children of
the house, as dear and precious as the prattling babes
the brother and sisters had missed in their own journey?
To talk about them was as near as they could get
to the possession of all those children and grandchildren,
after whom their soft hearts yearned. For though
it is doubtful whether Timothy’s heart yearned,
it is indubitable that at the arrival of each fresh
Forsyte child he was quite upset.

Useless for young Roger to say, “Old cat!”
for Euphemia to hold up her hands and cry: “Oh!
those three!” and break into her silent laugh
with the squeak at the end. Useless, and not
too kind.

The situation which at this stage might seem, and
especially to Forsyte eyes, strange—­not
to say ’impossible’—­was, in
view of certain facts, not so strange after all.
Some things had been lost sight of. And first,
in the security bred of many harmless marriages, it
had been forgotten that Love is no hot-house flower,
but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an
hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along
the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when
it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens,
we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call
a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour
are always, wild! And further—­the
facts and figures of their own lives being against
the perception of this truth—­it was not
generally recognised by Forsytes that, where, this
wild plant springs, men and women are but moths around
the pale, flame-like blossom.

Page 91

It was long since young Jolyon’s escapade—­there
was danger of a tradition again arising that people
in their position never cross the hedge to pluck that
flower; that one could reckon on having love, like
measles, once in due season, and getting over it comfortably
for all time—­as with measles, on a soothing
mixture of butter and honey—­in the arms
of wedlock.

Of all those whom this strange rumour about Bosinney
and Mrs. Soames reached, James was the most affected.
He had long forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and
pale, in side whiskers of chestnut hue, round Emily,
in the days of his own courtship. He had long
forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair,
where he had spent the early days of his married life,
or rather, he had long forgotten the early days, not
the small house,—­a Forsyte never forgot
a house—­he had afterwards sold it at a
clear profit of four hundred pounds.

He had long forgotten those days, with their hopes
and fears and doubts about the prudence of the match
(for Emily, though pretty, had nothing, and he himself
at that time was making a bare thousand a year), and
that strange, irresistible attraction which had drawn
him on, till he felt he must die if he could not marry
the girl with the fair hair, looped so neatly back,
the fair arms emerging from a skin-tight bodice, the
fair form decorously shielded by a cage of really
stupendous circumference.

James had passed through the fire, but he had passed
also through the river of years which washes out the
fire; he had experienced the saddest experience of
all—­forgetfulness of what it was like to
be in love.

Forgotten! Forgotten so long, that he had forgotten
even that he had forgotten.

And now this rumour had come upon him, this rumour
about his son’s wife; very vague, a shadow dodging
among the palpable, straightforward appearances of
things, unreal, unintelligible as a ghost, but carrying
with it, like a ghost, inexplicable terror.

He tried to bring it home to his mind, but it was
no more use than trying to apply to himself one of
those tragedies he read of daily in his evening paper.
He simply could not. There could be nothing
in it. It was all their nonsense. She
didn’t get on with Soames as well as she might,
but she was a good little thing—­a good little
thing!

Like the not inconsiderable majority of men, James
relished a nice little bit of scandal, and would say,
in a matter-of-fact tone, licking his lips, “Yes,
yes—­she and young Dyson; they tell me they’re
living at Monte Carlo!”

But the significance of an affair of this sort—­of
its past, its present, or its future—­had
never struck him. What it meant, what torture
and raptures had gone to its construction, what slow,
overmastering fate had lurked within the facts, very
naked, sometimes sordid, but generally spicy, presented
to his gaze. He was not in the habit of blaming,
praising, drawing deductions, or generalizing at all
about such things; he simply listened rather greedily,
and repeated what he was told, finding considerable
benefit from the practice, as from the consumption
of a sherry and bitters before a meal.

Page 92

Now, however, that such a thing—­or rather
the rumour, the breath of it—­had come near
him personally, he felt as in a fog, which filled his
mouth full of a bad, thick flavour, and made it difficult
to draw breath.

A scandal! A possible scandal!

To repeat this word to himself thus was the only way
in which he could focus or make it thinkable.
He had forgotten the sensations necessary for understanding
the progress, fate, or meaning of any such business;
he simply could no longer grasp the possibilities
of people running any risk for the sake of passion.

Amongst all those persons of his acquaintance, who
went into the City day after day and did their business
there, whatever it was, and in their leisure moments
bought shares, and houses, and ate dinners, and played
games, as he was told, it would have seemed to him
ridiculous to suppose that there were any who would
run risks for the sake of anything so recondite, so
figurative, as passion.

Passion! He seemed, indeed, to have heard of
it, and rules such as ’A young man and a young
woman ought never to be trusted together’ were
fixed in his mind as the parallels of latitude are
fixed on a map (for all Forsytes, when it comes to
‘bed-rock’ matters of fact, have quite
a fine taste in realism); but as to anything else—­well,
he could only appreciate it at all through the catch-word
‘scandal.’

Ah! but there was no truth in it—­could
not be. He was not afraid; she was really a
good little thing. But there it was when you
got a thing like that into your mind. And James
was of a nervous temperament—­one of those
men whom things will not leave alone, who suffer tortures
from anticipation and indecision. For fear of
letting something slip that he might otherwise secure,
he was physically unable to make up his mind until
absolutely certain that, by not making it up, he would
suffer loss.

In life, however, there were many occasions when the
business of making up his mind did not even rest with
himself, and this was one of them.

What could he do? Talk it over with Soames?
That would only make matters worse. And, after
all, there was nothing in it, he felt sure.

It was all that house. He had mistrusted the
idea from the first. What did Soames want to
go into the country for? And, if he must go spending
a lot of money building himself a house, why not have
a first-rate man, instead of this young Bosinney,
whom nobody knew anything about? He had told
them how it would be. And he had heard that the
house was costing Soames a pretty penny beyond what
he had reckoned on spending.

This fact, more than any other, brought home to James
the real danger of the situation. It was always
like this with these ‘artistic’ chaps;
a sensible man should have nothing to say to them.
He had warned Irene, too. And see what had
come of it!

Page 93

And it suddenly sprang into James’s mind that
he ought to go and see for himself. In the midst
of that fog of uneasiness in which his mind was enveloped
the notion that he could go and look at the house afforded
him inexplicable satisfaction. It may have been
simply the decision to do something—­more
possibly the fact that he was going to look at a house—­that
gave him relief. He felt that in staring at an
edifice of bricks and mortar, of wood and stone, built
by the suspected man himself, he would be looking
into the heart of that rumour about Irene.

Without saying a word, therefore, to anyone, he took
a hansom to the station and proceeded by train to
Robin Hill; thence—­there being no ‘flies,’
in accordance with the custom of the neighbourhood—­he
found himself obliged to walk.

He started slowly up the hill, his angular knees and
high shoulders bent complainingly, his eyes fixed
on his feet, yet, neat for all that, in his high hat
and his frock-coat, on which was the speckless gloss
imparted by perfect superintendence. Emily saw
to that; that is, she did not, of course, see to it—­people
of good position not seeing to each other’s
buttons, and Emily was of good position—­but
she saw that the butler saw to it.

He had to ask his way three times; on each occasion
he repeated the directions given him, got the man
to repeat them, then repeated them a second time,
for he was naturally of a talkative disposition, and
one could not be too careful in a new neighbourhood.

He kept assuring them that it was a new house he was
looking for; it was only, however, when he was shown
the roof through the trees that he could feel really
satisfied that he had not been directed entirely wrong.

A heavy sky seemed to cover the world with the grey
whiteness of a whitewashed ceiling. There was
no freshness or fragrance in the air. On such
a day even British workmen scarcely cared to do more
then they were obliged, and moved about their business
without the drone of talk which whiles away the pangs
of labour.

Through spaces of the unfinished house, shirt-sleeved
figures worked slowly, and sounds arose—­spasmodic
knockings, the scraping of metal, the sawing of wood,
with the rumble of wheelbarrows along boards; now and
again the foreman’s dog, tethered by a string
to an oaken beam, whimpered feebly, with a sound like
the singing of a kettle.

The fresh-fitted window-panes, daubed each with a
white patch in the centre, stared out at James like
the eyes of a blind dog.

And the building chorus went on, strident and mirthless
under the grey-white sky. But the thrushes,
hunting amongst the fresh-turned earth for worms,
were silent quite.

James picked his way among the heaps of gravel—­the
drive was being laid—­till he came opposite
the porch. Here he stopped and raised his eyes.
There was but little to see from this point of view,
and that little he took in at once; but he stayed
in this position many minutes, and who shall know
of what he thought.

Page 94

His china-blue eyes under white eyebrows that jutted
out in little horns, never stirred; the long upper
lip of his wide mouth, between the fine white whiskers,
twitched once or twice; it was easy to see from that
anxious rapt expression, whence Soames derived the
handicapped look which sometimes came upon his face.
James might have been saying to himself: ‘I
don’t know—­life’s a tough job.’

In this position Bosinney surprised him.

James brought his eyes down from whatever bird’s-nest
they had been looking for in the sky to Bosinney’s
face, on which was a kind of humorous scorn.

“How do you do, Mr. Forsyte? Come down
to see for yourself?”

It was exactly what James, as we know, had come for,
and he was made correspondingly uneasy. He held
out his hand, however, saying:

“How are you?” without looking at Bosinney.

The latter made way for him with an ironical smile.

James scented something suspicious in this courtesy.
“I should like to walk round the outside first,”
he said, “and see what you’ve been doing!”

A flagged terrace of rounded stones with a list of
two or three inches to port had been laid round the
south-east and south-west sides of the house, and
ran with a bevelled edge into mould, which was in preparation
for being turfed; along this terrace James led the
way.

“Now what did this cost?” he asked, when
he saw the terrace extending round the corner.

“What should you think?” inquired Bosinney.

“How should I know?” replied James somewhat
nonplussed; “two or three hundred, I dare say!”

“The exact sum!”

James gave him a sharp look, but the architect appeared
unconscious, and he put the answer down to mishearing.

On arriving at the garden entrance, he stopped to
look at the view.

“That ought to come down,” he said, pointing
to the oak-tree.

“You think so? You think that with the
tree there you don’t get enough view for your
money.”

Again James eyed him suspiciously—­this
young man had a peculiar way of putting things:
“Well!” he said, with a perplexed, nervous,
emphasis, “I don’t see what you want with
a tree.”

“It shall come down to-morrow,” said Bosinney.

James was alarmed. “Oh,” he said,
“don’t go saying I said it was to come
down! I know nothing about it!”

“No?”

James went on in a fluster: “Why, what
should I know about it? It’s nothing to
do with me! You do it on your own responsibility.”

“You’ll allow me to mention your name?”

James grew more and more alarmed: “I don’t
know what you want mentioning my name for,”
he muttered; “you’d better leave the tree
alone. It’s not your tree!”

He took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his brow.
They entered the house. Like Swithin, James
was impressed by the inner court-yard.

“You must have spent a douce of a lot of money
here,” he said, after staring at the columns
and gallery for some time. “Now, what did
it cost to put up those columns?”

Page 95

“I can’t tell you off-hand,” thoughtfully
answered Bosinney, “but I know it was a deuce
of a lot!”

“I should think so,” said James.
“I should....” He caught the architect’s
eye, and broke off. And now, whenever he came
to anything of which he desired to know the cost,
he stifled that curiosity.

Bosinney appeared determined that he should see everything,
and had not James been of too ‘noticing’
a nature, he would certainly have found himself going
round the house a second time. He seemed so anxious
to be asked questions, too, that James felt he must
be on his guard. He began to suffer from his
exertions, for, though wiry enough for a man of his
long build, he was seventy-five years old.

He grew discouraged; he seemed no nearer to anything,
had not obtained from his inspection any of the knowledge
he had vaguely hoped for. He had merely increased
his dislike and mistrust of this young man, who had
tired him out with his politeness, and in whose manner
he now certainly detected mockery.

The fellow was sharper than he had thought, and better-looking
than he had hoped. He had a—­a ‘don’t
care’ appearance that James, to whom risk was
the most intolerable thing in life, did not appreciate;
a peculiar smile, too, coming when least expected;
and very queer eyes. He reminded James, as he
said afterwards, of a hungry cat. This was as
near as he could get, in conversation with Emily,
to a description of the peculiar exasperation, velvetiness,
and mockery, of which Bosinney’s manner had
been composed.

At last, having seen all that was to be seen, he came
out again at the door where he had gone in; and now,
feeling that he was wasting time and strength and
money, all for nothing, he took the courage of a Forsyte
in both hands, and, looking sharply at Bosinney, said:

“I dare say you see a good deal of my daughter-in-law;
now, what does she think of the house? But she
hasn’t seen it, I suppose?”

This he said, knowing all about Irene’s visit
not, of course, that there was anything in the visit,
except that extraordinary remark she had made about
’not caring to get home’—­and
the story of how June had taken the news!

He had determined, by this way of putting the question,
to give Bosinney a chance, as he said to himself.

The latter was long in answering, but kept his eyes
with uncomfortable steadiness on James.

“She has seen the house, but I can’t tell
you what she thinks of it.”

Nervous and baffled, James was constitutionally prevented
from letting the matter drop.

“Oh!” he said, “she has seen it?
Soames brought her down, I suppose?”

Bosinney smilingly replied: “Oh, no!”

“What, did she come down alone?”

“Oh, no!”

“Then—­who brought her?”

“I really don’t know whether I ought to
tell you who brought her.”

To James, who knew that it was Swithin, this answer
appeared incomprehensible.

Page 96

“Why!” he stammered, “you know that....”
but he stopped, suddenly perceiving his danger.

“By the by,” he said, “could you
tell me if there are likely to be any more of you
coming down? I should like to be on the spot!”

“Any more?” said James bewildered, “who
should there be more? I don’t know of
any more. Good-bye?”

Looking at the ground he held out his hand, crossed
the palm of it with Bosinney’s, and taking his
umbrella just above the silk, walked away along the
terrace.

Before he turned the corner he glanced back, and saw
Bosinney following him slowly—­’slinking
along the wall’ as he put it to himself, ’like
a great cat.’ He paid no attention when
the young fellow raised his hat.

Outside the drive, and out of sight, he slackened
his pace still more. Very slowly, more bent than
when he came, lean, hungry, and disheartened, he made
his way back to the station.

The Buccaneer, watching him go so sadly home, felt
sorry perhaps for his behaviour to the old man.

CHAPTER V

SOAMES AND BOSINNEY CORRESPOND

James said nothing to his son of this visit to the
house; but, having occasion to go to Timothy’s
on morning on a matter connected with a drainage scheme
which was being forced by the sanitary authorities
on his brother, he mentioned it there.

It was not, he said, a bad house. He could see
that a good deal could be made of it. The fellow
was clever in his way, though what it was going to
cost Soames before it was done with he didn’t
know.

Euphemia Forsyte, who happened to be in the room—­she
had come round to borrow the Rev. Mr. Scoles’
last novel, ‘Passion and Paregoric’, which
was having such a vogue—­chimed in.

“I saw Irene yesterday at the Stores; she and
Mr. Bosinney were having a nice little chat in the
Groceries.”

It was thus, simply, that she recorded a scene which
had really made a deep and complicated impression
on her. She had been hurrying to the silk department
of the Church and Commercial Stores—­that
Institution than which, with its admirable system,
admitting only guaranteed persons on a basis of payment
before delivery, no emporium can be more highly recommended
to Forsytes—­to match a piece of prunella
silk for her mother, who was waiting in the carriage
outside.

Passing through the Groceries her eye was unpleasantly
attracted by the back view of a very beautiful figure.
It was so charmingly proportioned, so balanced, and
so well clothed, that Euphemia’s instinctive
propriety was at once alarmed; such figures, she knew,
by intuition rather than experience, were rarely connected
with virtue—­certainly never in her mind,
for her own back was somewhat difficult to fit.

Page 97

Her suspicions were fortunately confirmed. A
young man coming from the Drugs had snatched off his
hat, and was accosting the lady with the unknown back.

It was then that she saw with whom she had to deal;
the lady was undoubtedly Mrs. Soames, the young man
Mr. Bosinney. Concealing herself rapidly over
the purchase of a box of Tunisian dates, for she was
impatient of awkwardly meeting people with parcels
in her hands, and at the busy time of the morning,
she was quite unintentionally an interested observer
of their little interview.

Mrs. Soames, usually somewhat pale, had a delightful
colour in her cheeks; and Mr. Bosinney’s manner
was strange, though attractive (she thought him rather
a distinguished-looking man, and George’s name
for him, ’The Buccaneer’—­about
which there was something romantic—­quite
charming). He seemed to be pleading. Indeed,
they talked so earnestly—­or, rather, he
talked so earnestly, for Mrs. Soames did not say much—­that
they caused, inconsiderately, an eddy in the traffic.
One nice old General, going towards Cigars, was obliged
to step quite out of the way, and chancing to look
up and see Mrs. Soames’ face, he actually took
off his hat, the old fool! So like a man!

But it was Mrs. Soames’ eyes that worried Euphemia.
She never once looked at Mr. Bosinney until he moved
on, and then she looked after him. And, oh, that
look!

On that look Euphemia had spent much anxious thought.
It is not too much to say that it had hurt her with
its dark, lingering softness, for all the world as
though the woman wanted to drag him back, and unsay
something she had been saying.

Ah, well, she had had no time to go deeply into the
matter just then, with that prunella silk on her hands;
but she was ’very intriguee’—­very!
She had just nodded to Mrs. Soames, to show her that
she had seen; and, as she confided, in talking it
over afterwards, to her chum Francie (Roger’s
daughter), “Didn’t she look caught out
just? ....”

James, most averse at the first blush to accepting
any news confirmatory of his own poignant suspicions,
took her up at once.

“Oh” he said, “they’d be after
wall-papers no doubt.”

Euphemia smiled. “In the Groceries?”
she said softly; and, taking ‘Passion and Paregoric’
from the table, added: “And so you’ll
lend me this, dear Auntie? Good-bye!”
and went away.

James left almost immediately after; he was late as
it was.

When he reached the office of Forsyte, Bustard and
Forsyte, he found Soames, sitting in his revolving,
chair, drawing up a defence. The latter greeted
his father with a curt good-morning, and, taking an
envelope from his pocket, said:

“It may interest you to look through this.”

James read as follows:

309D, Sloanestreet, May 15. ’DearForsyte,

’The construction of your house being now completed,
my duties as architect have come to an end.
If I am to go on with the business of decoration,
which at your request I undertook, I should like you
to clearly understand that I must have a free hand.

Page 98

’You never come down without suggesting something
that goes counter to my scheme. I have here
three letters from you, each of which recommends an
article I should never dream of putting in. I
had your father here yesterday afternoon, who made
further valuable suggestions.

’Please make up your mind, therefore, whether
you want me to decorate for you, or to retire which
on the whole I should prefer to do.

’But understand that, if I decorate, I decorate
alone, without interference of any sort.

If I do the thing, I will do it thoroughly, but I
must have a free hand.

’Yours truly,
‘PhilipBosinney.’

The exact and immediate cause of this letter cannot,
of course, be told, though it is not improbable that
Bosinney may have been moved by some sudden revolt
against his position towards Soames—­that
eternal position of Art towards Property—­which
is so admirably summed up, on the back of the most
indispensable of modern appliances, in a sentence comparable
to the very finest in Tacitus:

THOS. T. Sorrow, Inventor. Bert
M. PADLAND, Proprietor.

“What are you going to say to him?” James
asked.

Soames did not even turn his head. “I
haven’t made up my mind,” he said, and
went on with his defence.

A client of his, having put some buildings on a piece
of ground that did not belong to him, had been suddenly
and most irritatingly warned to take them off again.
After carefully going into the facts, however, Soames
had seen his way to advise that his client had what
was known as a title by possession, and that, though
undoubtedly the ground did not belong to him, he was
entitled to keep it, and had better do so; and he was
now following up this advice by taking steps to—­as
the sailors say—­’make it so.’

He had a distinct reputation for sound advice; people
saying of him: “Go to young Forsyte—­a
long-headed fellow!” and he prized this reputation
highly.

His natural taciturnity was in his favour; nothing
could be more calculated to give people, especially
people with property (Soames had no other clients),
the impression that he was a safe man. And he
was safe. Tradition, habit, education, inherited
aptitude, native caution, all joined to form a solid
professional honesty, superior to temptation—­from
the very fact that it was built on an innate avoidance
of risk. How could he fall, when his soul abhorred
circumstances which render a fall possible—­a
man cannot fall off the floor!

And those countless Forsytes, who, in the course of
innumerable transactions concerned with property of
all sorts (from wives to water rights), had occasion
for the services of a safe man, found it both reposeful
and profitable to confide in Soames. That slight
superciliousness of his, combined with an air of mousing
amongst precedents, was in his favour too—­a
man would not be supercilious unless he knew!

Page 99

He was really at the head of the business, for though
James still came nearly every day to, see for himself,
he did little now but sit in his chair, twist his
legs, slightly confuse things already decided, and
presently go away again, and the other partner, Bustard,
was a poor thing, who did a great deal of work, but
whose opinion was never taken.

So Soames went steadily on with his defence.
Yet it would be idle to say that his mind was at
ease. He was suffering from a sense of impending
trouble, that had haunted him for some time past.
He tried to think it physical—­a condition
of his liver—­but knew that it was not.

He looked at his watch. In a quarter of an hour
he was due at the General Meeting of the New Colliery
Company—­one of Uncle Jolyon’s concerns;
he should see Uncle Jolyon there, and say something
to him about Bosinney—­he had not made up
his mind what, but something—­in any case
he should not answer this letter until he had seen
Uncle Jolyon. He got up and methodically put
away the draft of his defence. Going into a
dark little cupboard, he turned up the light, washed
his hands with a piece of brown Windsor soap, and
dried them on a roller towel. Then he brushed
his hair, paying strict attention to the parting, turned
down the light, took his hat, and saying he would
be back at half-past two, stepped into the Poultry.

It was not far to the Offices of the New Colliery
Company in Ironmonger Lane, where, and not at the
Cannon Street Hotel, in accordance with the more ambitious
practice of other companies, the General Meeting was
always held. Old Jolyon had from the first set
his face against the Press. What business—­he
said—­had the Public with his concerns!

Soames arrived on the stroke of time, and took his
seat alongside the Board, who, in a row, each Director
behind his own ink-pot, faced their Shareholders.

In the centre of this row old Jolyon, conspicuous
in his black, tightly-buttoned frock-coat and his
white moustaches, was leaning back with finger tips
crossed on a copy of the Directors’ report and
accounts.

On his right hand, always a little larger than life,
sat the Secretary, ‘Down-by-the-starn’
Hemmings; an all-too-sad sadness beaming in his fine
eyes; his iron-grey beard, in mourning like the rest
of him, giving the feeling of an all-too-black tie
behind it.

The occasion indeed was a melancholy one, only six
weeks having elapsed since that telegram had come
from Scorrier, the mining expert, on a private mission
to the Mines, informing them that Pippin, their Superintendent,
had committed suicide in endeavouring, after his extraordinary
two years’ silence, to write a letter to his
Board. That letter was on the table now; it
would be read to the Shareholders, who would of course
be put into possession of all the facts.

Hemmings had often said to Soames, standing with his
coat-tails divided before the fireplace:

Page 100

“What our Shareholders don’t know about
our affairs isn’t worth knowing. You may
take that from me, Mr. Soames.”

On one occasion, old Jolyon being present, Soames
recollected a little unpleasantness. His uncle
had looked up sharply and said: “Don’t
talk nonsense, Hemmings! You mean that what
they do know isn’t worth knowing!” Old
Jolyon detested humbug.

Hemmings, angry-eyed, and wearing a smile like that
of a trained poodle, had replied in an outburst of
artificial applause: “Come, now, that’s
good, sir—­that’s very good.
Your uncle will have his joke!”

The next time he had seen Soames he had taken the
opportunity of saying to him: “The chairman’s
getting very old!—­I can’t get him
to understand things; and he’s so wilful—­but
what can you expect, with a chin like his?”

Soames had nodded.

Everyone knew that Uncle Jolyon’s chin was a
caution. He was looking worried to-day, in spite
of his General Meeting look; he (Soames) should certainly
speak to him about Bosinney.

Beyond old Jolyon on the left was little Mr. Booker,
and he, too, wore his General Meeting look, as though
searching for some particularly tender shareholder.
And next him was the deaf director, with a frown;
and beyond the deaf director, again, was old Mr. Bleedham,
very bland, and having an air of conscious virtue—­as
well he might, knowing that the brown-paper parcel
he always brought to the Board-room was concealed
behind his hat (one of that old-fashioned class, of
flat-brimmed top-hats which go with very large bow
ties, clean-shaven lips, fresh cheeks, and neat little,
white whiskers).

Soames always attended the General Meeting; it was
considered better that he should do so, in case ‘anything
should arise!’ He glanced round with his close,
supercilious air at the walls of the room, where hung
plans of the mine and harbour, together with a large
photograph of a shaft leading to a working which had
proved quite remarkably unprofitable. This photograph—­a
witness to the eternal irony underlying commercial
enterprise till retained its position on the—­wall,
an effigy of the directors’ pet, but dead, lamb.

And now old Jolyon rose, to present the report and
accounts.

Veiling under a Jove-like serenity that perpetual
antagonism deep-seated in the bosom of a director
towards his shareholders, he faced them calmly.
Soames faced them too. He knew most of them
by sight. There was old Scrubsole, a tar man,
who always came, as Hemmings would say, ’to
make himself nasty,’ a cantankerous-looking old
fellow with a red face, a jowl, and an enormous low-crowned
hat reposing on his knee. And the Rev. Mr. Boms,
who always proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman,
in which he invariably expressed the hope that the
Board would not forget to elevate their employees,
using the word with a double e, as being more vigorous
and Anglo-Saxon (he had the strong Imperialistic tendencies
of his cloth). It was his salutary custom to
buttonhole a director afterwards, and ask him whether
he thought the coming year would be good or bad; and,
according to the trend of the answer, to buy or sell
three shares within the ensuing fortnight.

Page 101

And there was that military man, Major O’Bally,
who could not help speaking, if only to second the
re-election of the auditor, and who sometimes caused
serious consternation by taking toasts—­proposals
rather—­out of the hands of persons who had
been flattered with little slips of paper, entrusting
the said proposals to their care.

These made up the lot, together with four or five
strong, silent shareholders, with whom Soames could
sympathize—­men of business, who liked to
keep an eye on their affairs for themselves, without
being fussy—­good, solid men, who came to
the City every day and went back in the evening to
good, solid wives.

Good, solid wives! There was something in that
thought which roused the nameless uneasiness in Soames
again.

What should he say to his uncle? What answer
should he make to this letter?

. . . . “If any shareholder has any
question to put, I shall be glad to answer it.”
A soft thump. Old Jolyon had let the report and
accounts fall, and stood twisting his tortoise-shell
glasses between thumb and forefinger.

The ghost of a smile appeared on Soames’ face.
They had better hurry up with their questions!
He well knew his uncle’s method (the ideal one)
of at once saying: “I propose, then, that
the report and accounts be adopted!” Never
let them get their wind—­shareholders were
notoriously wasteful of time!

A tall, white-bearded man, with a gaunt, dissatisfied
face, arose:

“I believe I am in order, Mr. Chairman, in raising
a question on this figure of L5000 in the accounts.
‘To the widow and family"’ (he looked
sourly round), “‘of our late superintendent,’
who so—­er—­ill-advisedly (I say—­ill-advisedly)
committed suicide, at a time when his services were
of the utmost value to this Company. You have
stated that the agreement which he has so unfortunately
cut short with his own hand was for a period of five
years, of which one only had expired—­I—­”

Old Jolyon made a gesture of impatience.

“I believe I am in order, Mr. Chairman—­I
ask whether this amount paid, or proposed to be paid,
by the Board to the er—­deceased—­is
for services which might have been rendered to the
Company—­had he not committed suicide?”

“It is in recognition of past services, which
we all know—­you as well as any of us—­to
have been of vital value.”

“Then, sir, all I have to say is that the services
being past, the amount is too much.”

The shareholder sat down.

Old Jolyon waited a second and said: “I
now propose that the report and—­”

The shareholder rose again: “May I ask
if the Board realizes that it is not their money which—­I
don’t hesitate to say that if it were their
money....”

A second shareholder, with a round, dogged face, whom
Soames recognised as the late superintendent’s
brother-in-law, got up and said warmly: “In
my opinion, sir, the sum is not enough!”

Page 102

The Rev. Mr. Boms now rose to his feet. “If
I may venture to express myself,” he said, “I
should say that the fact of the—­er—­deceased
having committed suicide should weigh very heavily—­very
heavily with our worthy chairman. I have no
doubt it has weighed with him, for—­I say
this for myself and I think for everyone present (hear,
hear)—­he enjoys our confidence in a high
degree. We all desire, I should hope, to be
charitable. But I feel sure” (he-looked
severely at the late superintendent’s brother-in-law)
“that he will in some way, by some written expression,
or better perhaps by reducing the amount, record our
grave disapproval that so promising and valuable a
life should have been thus impiously removed from
a sphere where both its own interests and—­if
I may say so—­our interests so imperatively
demanded its continuance. We should not—­nay,
we may not—­countenance so grave a dereliction
of all duty, both human and divine.”

The reverend gentleman resumed his seat. The
late superintendent’s brother-in-law again rose:
“What I have said I stick to,” he said;
“the amount is not enough!”

The first shareholder struck in: “I challenge
the legality of the payment. In my opinion this
payment is not legal. The Company’s solicitor
is present; I believe I am in order in asking him the
question.”

All eyes were now turned upon Soames. Something
had arisen!

He stood up, close-lipped and cold; his nerves inwardly
fluttered, his attention tweaked away at last from
contemplation of that cloud looming on the horizon
of his mind.

“The point,” he said in a low, thin voice,
“is by no means clear. As there is no possibility
of future consideration being received, it is doubtful
whether the payment is strictly legal. If it is
desired, the opinion of the court could be taken.”

The superintendent’s brother-in-law frowned,
and said in a meaning tone: “We have no
doubt the opinion of the court could be taken.
May I ask the name of the gentleman who has given
us that striking piece of information? Mr. Soames
Forsyte? Indeed!” He looked from Soames
to old Jolyon in a pointed manner.

A flush coloured Soames’ pale cheeks, but his
superciliousness did not waver. Old Jolyon fixed
his eyes on the speaker.

“If,” he said, “the late superintendents
brother-in-law has nothing more to say, I propose
that the report and accounts....”

At this moment, however, there rose one of those five
silent, stolid shareholders, who had excited Soames’
sympathy. He said:

“I deprecate the proposal altogether.
We are expected to give charity to this man’s
wife and children, who, you tell us, were dependent
on him. They may have been; I do not care whether
they were or not. I object to the whole thing
on principle. It is high time a stand was made
against this sentimental humanitarianism. The
country is eaten up with it. I object to my
money being paid to these people of whom I know nothing,
who have done nothing to earn it. I object in
toto; it is not business. I now move that the
report and accounts be put back, and amended by striking
out the grant altogether.”

Page 103

Old Jolyon had remained standing while the strong,
silent man was speaking. The speech awoke an
echo in all hearts, voicing, as it did, the worship
of strong men, the movement against generosity, which
had at that time already commenced among the saner
members of the community.

The words ‘it is not business’ had moved
even the Board; privately everyone felt that indeed
it was not. But they knew also the chairman’s
domineering temper and tenacity. He, too, at
heart must feel that it was not business; but he was
committed to his own proposition. Would he go
back upon it? It was thought to be unlikely.

All waited with interest. Old Jolyon held up
his hand; dark-rimmed glasses depending between his
finger and thumb quivered slightly with a suggestion
of menace.

He addressed the strong, silent shareholder.

“Knowing, as you do, the efforts of our late
superintendent upon the occasion of the explosion
at the mines, do you seriously wish me to put that
amendment, sir?”

“I do.”

Old Jolyon put the amendment.

“Does anyone second this?” he asked, looking
calmly round.

And it was then that Soames, looking at his uncle,
felt the power of will that was in that old man.
No one stirred. Looking straight into the eyes
of the strong, silent shareholder, old Jolyon said:

“I now move, ’That the report and accounts
for the year 1886 be received and adopted.’
You second that? Those in favour signify the
same in the usual way. Contrary—­no.
Carried. The next business, gentlemen....”

Soames smiled. Certainly Uncle Jolyon had a
way with him!

But now his attention relapsed upon Bosinney.

Odd how that fellow haunted his thoughts, even in
business hours.

Irene’s visit to the house—­but there
was nothing in that, except that she might have told
him; but then, again, she never did tell him anything.
She was more silent, more touchy, every day.
He wished to God the house were finished, and they
were in it, away from London. Town did not suit
her; her nerves were not strong enough. That
nonsense of the separate room had cropped up again!

The meeting was breaking up now. Underneath
the photograph of the lost shaft Hemmings was buttonholed
by the Rev. Mr. Boms. Little Mr. Booker, his
bristling eyebrows wreathed in angry smiles, was having
a parting turn-up with old Scrubsole. The two
hated each other like poison. There was some
matter of a tar-contract between them, little Mr. Booker
having secured it from the Board for a nephew of his,
over old Scrubsole’s head. Soames had heard
that from Hemmings, who liked a gossip, more especially
about his directors, except, indeed, old Jolyon, of
whom he was afraid.

Soames awaited his opportunity. The last shareholder
was vanishing through the door, when he approached
his uncle, who was putting on his hat.

“Can I speak to you for a minute, Uncle Jolyon?”

Page 104

It is uncertain what Soames expected to get out of
this interview.

Apart from that somewhat mysterious awe in which Forsytes
in general held old Jolyon, due to his philosophic
twist, or perhaps—­as Hemmings would doubtless
have said—­to his chin, there was, and always
had been, a subtle antagonism between the younger
man and the old. It had lurked under their dry
manner of greeting, under their non-committal allusions
to each other, and arose perhaps from old Jolyon’s
perception of the quiet tenacity (’obstinacy,’
he rather naturally called it) of the young man, of
a secret doubt whether he could get his own way with
him.

Both these Forsytes, wide asunder as the poles in
many respects, possessed in their different ways—­to
a greater degree than the rest of the family—­that
essential quality of tenacious and prudent insight
into ‘affairs,’ which is the highwater
mark of their great class. Either of them, with
a little luck and opportunity, was equal to a lofty
career; either of them would have made a good financier,
a great contractor, a statesman, though old Jolyon,
in certain of his moods when under the influence of
a cigar or of Nature—­would have been capable
of, not perhaps despising, but certainly of questioning,
his own high position, while Soames, who never smoked
cigars, would not.

Then, too, in old Jolyon’s mind there was always
the secret ache, that the son of James—­of
James, whom he had always thought such a poor thing,
should be pursuing the paths of success, while his
own son...!

And last, not least—­for he was no more
outside the radiation of family gossip than any other
Forsyte—­he had now heard the sinister, indefinite,
but none the less disturbing rumour about Bosinney,
and his pride was wounded to the quick.

Characteristically, his irritation turned not against
Irene but against Soames. The idea that his
nephew’s wife (why couldn’t the fellow
take better care of her—­Oh! quaint injustice!
as though Soames could possibly take more care!)—­should
be drawing to herself June’s lover, was intolerably
humiliating. And seeing the danger, he did not,
like James, hide it away in sheer nervousness, but
owned with the dispassion of his broader outlook,
that it was not unlikely; there was something very
attractive about Irene!

He had a presentiment on the subject of Soames’
communication as they left the Board Room together,
and went out into the noise and hurry of Cheapside.
They walked together a good minute without speaking,
Soames with his mousing, mincing step, and old Jolyon
upright and using his umbrella languidly as a walking-stick.

They turned presently into comparative quiet, for
old Jolyon’s way to a second Board led him in
the direction of Moorage Street.

Then Soames, without lifting his eyes, began:
“I’ve had this letter from Bosinney.
You see what he says; I thought I’d let you
know. I’ve spent a lot more than I intended
on this house, and I want the position to be clear.”

Page 105

Old Jolyon ran his eyes unwillingly over the letter:
“What he says is clear enough,” he said.

“He talks about ‘a free hand,’”
replied Soames.

Old Jolyon looked at him. The long-suppressed
irritation and antagonism towards this young fellow,
whose affairs were beginning to intrude upon his own,
burst from him.

“Well, if you don’t trust him, why do
you employ him?”

Soames stole a sideway look: “It’s
much too late to go into that,” he said, “I
only want it to be quite understood that if I give
him a free hand, he doesn’t let me in.
I thought if you were to speak to him, it would carry
more weight!”

“No,” said old Jolyon abruptly; “I’ll
have nothing to do with it!”

The words of both uncle and nephew gave the impression
of unspoken meanings, far more important, behind.
And the look they interchanged was like a revelation
of this consciousness.

“Oh! I don’t know,” said Soames,
and flurried by that sharp look he was unable to say
more. “Don’t say I didn’t tell
you,” he added sulkily, recovering his composure.

“Tell me!” said old Jolyon; “I don’t
know what you mean. You come worrying me about
a thing like this. I don’t want to hear
about your affairs; you must manage them yourself!”

“Very well,” said Soames immovably, “I
will!”

“Good-morning, then,” said old Jolyon,
and they parted.

Soames retraced his steps, and going into a celebrated
eating-house, asked for a plate of smoked salmon and
a glass of Chablis; he seldom ate much in the middle
of the day, and generally ate standing, finding the
position beneficial to his liver, which was very sound,
but to which he desired to put down all his troubles.

When he had finished he went slowly back to his office,
with bent head, taking no notice of the swarming thousands
on the pavements, who in their turn took no notice
of him.

’I have, received your letter, the terms of
which not a little surprise me. I was under
the impression that you had, and have had all along,
a “free hand”; for I do not recollect
that any suggestions I have been so unfortunate as
to make have met with your approval. In giving
you, in accordance with your request, this “free
hand,” I wish you to clearly understand that
the total cost of the house as handed over to me completely
decorated, inclusive of your fee (as arranged between
us), must not exceed twelve thousand pounds—­L12,000.
This gives you an ample margin, and, as you know,
is far more than I originally contemplated.

Page 106

’If you think that in such a delicate matter
as decoration I can bind myself to the exact pound,
I am afraid you are mistaken. I can see that
you are tired of the arrangement, and of me, and I
had better, therefore, resign.

’Yours faithfully,
‘PhilipBaynesBosinney.’

Soames pondered long and painfully over his answer,
and late at night in the dining-room, when Irene had
gone to bed, he composed the following:

’62, Montpelliersquare, S.W., ’May
19, 1887. ’DearBosinney,

’I think that in both our interests it would
be extremely undesirable that matters should be so
left at this stage. I did not mean to say that
if you should exceed the sum named in my letter to
you by ten or twenty or even fifty pounds, there would
be any difficulty between us. This being so,
I should like you to reconsider your answer.
You have a “free hand” in the terms of
this correspondence, and I hope you will see your
way to completing the decorations, in the matter of
which I know it is difficult to be absolutely exact.

’Yours truly,
‘SoamesForsyte.’

Bosinney’s answer, which came in the course
of the next day, was:

’May 20.
’DearForsyte,

’Very well.
‘Ph. Bosinney.’

CHAPTER VI

OLD JOLYON AT THE ZOO

Old Jolyon disposed of his second Meeting—­an
ordinary Board—­summarily. He was so
dictatorial that his fellow directors were left in
cabal over the increasing domineeringness of old Forsyte,
which they were far from intending to stand much longer,
they said.

He went out by Underground to Portland Road Station,
whence he took a cab and drove to the Zoo.

He had an assignation there, one of those assignations
that had lately been growing more frequent, to which
his increasing uneasiness about June and the ‘change
in her,’ as he expressed it, was driving him.

She buried herself away, and was growing thin; if
he spoke to her he got no answer, or had his head
snapped off, or she looked as if she would burst into
tears. She was as changed as she could be, all
through this Bosinney. As for telling him about
anything, not a bit of it!

And he would sit for long spells brooding, his paper
unread before him, a cigar extinct between his lips.
She had been such a companion to him ever since she
was three years old! And he loved her so!

Forces regardless of family or class or custom were
beating down his guard; impending events over which
he had no control threw their shadows on his head.
The irritation of one accustomed to have his way was
roused against he knew not what.

Page 107

Chafing at the slowness of his cab, he reached the
Zoo door; but, with his sunny instinct for seizing
the good of each moment, he forgot his vexation as
he walked towards the tryst.

From the stone terrace above the bear-pit his son
and his two grandchildren came hastening down when
they saw old Jolyon coming, and led him away towards
the lion-house. They supported him on either
side, holding one to each of his hands,—­whilst
Jolly, perverse like his father, carried his grandfather’s
umbrella in such a way as to catch people’s
legs with the crutch of the handle.

Young Jolyon followed.

It was as good as a play to see his father with the
children, but such a play as brings smiles with tears
behind. An old man and two small children walking
together can be seen at any hour of the day; but the
sight of old Jolyon, with Jolly and Holly seemed to
young Jolyon a special peep-show of the things that
lie at the bottom of our hearts. The complete
surrender of that erect old figure to those little
figures on either hand was too poignantly tender,
and, being a man of an habitual reflex action, young
Jolyon swore softly under his breath. The show
affected him in a way unbecoming to a Forsyte, who
is nothing if not undemonstrative.

Thus they reached the lion-house.

There had been a morning fete at the Botanical Gardens,
and a large number of Forsy...’—­that
is, of well-dressed people who kept carriages had
brought them on to the Zoo, so as to have more, if
possible, for their money, before going back to Rutland
Gate or Bryanston Square.

“Let’s go on to the Zoo,” they had
said to each other; “it’ll be great fun!”
It was a shilling day; and there would not be all
those horrid common people.

In front of the long line of cages they were collected
in rows, watching the tawny, ravenous beasts behind
the bars await their only pleasure of the four-and-twenty
hours. The hungrier the beast, the greater the
fascination. But whether because the spectators
envied his appetite, or, more humanely, because it
was so soon to be satisfied, young Jolyon could not
tell. Remarks kept falling on his ears: “That’s
a nasty-looking brute, that tiger!” “Oh,
what a love! Look at his little mouth!”
“Yes, he’s rather nice! Don’t
go too near, mother.”

And frequently, with little pats, one or another would
clap their hands to their pockets behind and look
round, as though expecting young Jolyon or some disinterested-looking
person to relieve them of the contents.

A well-fed man in a white waistcoat said slowly through
his teeth: “It’s all greed; they
can’t be hungry. Why, they take no exercise.”
At these words a tiger snatched a piece of bleeding
liver, and the fat man laughed. His wife, in
a Paris model frock and gold nose-nippers, reproved
him: “How can you laugh, Harry? Such
a horrid sight!”

Young Jolyon frowned.

The circumstances of his life, though he had ceased
to take a too personal view of them, had left him
subject to an intermittent contempt; and the class
to which he had belonged—­the carriage class—­especially
excited his sarcasm.

Page 108

To shut up a lion or tiger in confinement was surely
a horrible barbarity. But no cultivated person
would admit this.

The idea of its being barbarous to confine wild animals
had probably never even occurred to his father for
instance; he belonged to the old school, who considered
it at once humanizing and educational to confine baboons
and panthers, holding the view, no doubt, that in course
of time they might induce these creatures not so unreasonably
to die of misery and heart-sickness against the bars
of their cages, and put the society to the expense
of getting others! In his eyes, as in the eyes
of all Forsytes, the pleasure of seeing these beautiful
creatures in a state of captivity far outweighed the
inconvenience of imprisonment to beasts whom God had
so improvidently placed in a state of freedom!
It was for the animals good, removing them at once
from the countless dangers of open air and exercise,
and enabling them to exercise their functions in the
guaranteed seclusion of a private compartment!
Indeed, it was doubtful what wild animals were made
for but to be shut up in cages!

But as young Jolyon had in his constitution the elements
of impartiality, he reflected that to stigmatize as
barbarity that which was merely lack of imagination
must be wrong; for none who held these views had been
placed in a similar position to the animals they caged,
and could not, therefore, be expected to enter into
their sensations. It was not until they were
leaving the gardens—­Jolly and Holly in a
state of blissful delirium—­that old Jolyon
found an opportunity of speaking to his son on the
matter next his heart. “I don’t know
what to make of it,” he said; “if she’s
to go on as she’s going on now, I can’t
tell what’s to come. I wanted her to see
the doctor, but she won’t. She’s
not a bit like me. She’s your mother all
over. Obstinate as a mule! If she doesn’t
want to do a thing, she won’t, and there’s
an end of it!”

Young Jolyon smiled; his eyes had wandered to his
father’s chin. ’A pair of you,’
he thought, but he said nothing.

“And then,” went on old Jolyon, “there’s
this Bosinney. I should like to punch the fellow’s
head, but I can’t, I suppose, though—­I
don’t see why you shouldn’t,” he
added doubtfully.

“What has he done? Far better that it
should come to an end, if they don’t hit it
off!”

Old Jolyon looked at his son. Now they had actually
come to discuss a subject connected with the relations
between the sexes he felt distrustful. Jo would
be sure to hold some loose view or other.

“Well, I don’t know what you think,”
he said; “I dare say your sympathy’s with
him—­shouldn’t be surprised; but I
think he’s behaving precious badly, and if he
comes my way I shall tell him so.” He dropped
the subject.

It was impossible to discuss with his son the true
nature and meaning of Bosinney’s defection.
Had not his son done the very same thing (worse,
if possible) fifteen years ago? There seemed
no end to the consequences of that piece of folly.

Page 109

Young Jolyon also was silent; he had quickly penetrated
his father’s thought, for, dethroned from the
high seat of an obvious and uncomplicated view of
things, he had become both perceptive and subtle.

The attitude he had adopted towards sexual matters
fifteen years before, however, was too different from
his father’s. There was no bridging the
gulf.

He said coolly: “I suppose he’s fallen
in love with some other woman?”

Old Jolyon gave him a dubious look: “I
can’t tell,” he said; “they say
so!”

Young Jolyon did not whistle: The circumstances
of his own life had rendered him incapable of whistling
on such a subject, but he looked at his father, while
the ghost of a smile hovered over his face.

If old Jolyon saw, he took no notice.

“She and June were bosom friends!” he
muttered.

“Poor little June!” said young Jolyon
softly. He thought of his daughter still as
a babe of three.

Old Jolyon came to a sudden halt.

“I don’t believe a word of it,”
he said, “it’s some old woman’s tale.
Get me a cab, Jo, I’m tired to death!”

They stood at a corner to see if an empty cab would
come along, while carriage after carriage drove past,
bearing Forsytes of all descriptions from the Zoo.
The harness, the liveries, the gloss on the horses’
coats, shone and glittered in the May sunlight, and
each equipage, landau, sociable, barouche, Victoria,
or brougham, seemed to roll out proudly from its wheels:

‘I and my horses and my men you know,’
Indeed the whole turn-out have cost a pot. But
we were worth it every penny. Look At Master
and at Missis now, the dawgs! Ease with security—­ah!
that’s the ticket!

And such, as everyone knows, is fit accompaniment
for a perambulating Forsyte.

Amongst these carriages was a barouche coming at a
greater pace than the others, drawn by a pair of bright
bay horses. It swung on its high springs, and
the four people who filled it seemed rocked as in a
cradle.

This chariot attracted young Jolyon’s attention;
and suddenly, on the back seat, he recognised his
Uncle James, unmistakable in spite of the increased
whiteness of his whiskers; opposite, their backs defended
by sunshades, Rachel Forsyte and her elder but married
sister, Winifred Dartie, in irreproachable toilettes,
had posed their heads haughtily, like two of the birds
they had been seeing at the Zoo; while by James’
side reclined Dartie, in a brand-new frock-coat buttoned
tight and square, with a large expanse of carefully
shot linen protruding below each wristband.

An extra, if subdued, sparkle, an added touch of the
best gloss or varnish characterized this vehicle,
and seemed to distinguish it from all the others,
as though by some happy extravagance—­like
that which marks out the real ‘work of art’
from the ordinary ’picture’—­it
were designated as the typical car, the very throne
of Forsytedom.

Page 110

Old Jolyon did not see them pass; he was petting poor
Holly who was tired, but those in the carriage had
taken in the little group; the ladies’ heads
tilted suddenly, there was a spasmodic screening movement
of parasols; James’ face protruded naively, like
the head of a long bird, his mouth slowly opening.
The shield-like rounds of the parasols grew smaller
and smaller, and vanished.

Young Jolyon saw that he had been recognised, even
by Winifred, who could not have been more than fifteen
when he had forfeited the right to be considered a
Forsyte.

There was not much change in them! He remembered
the exact look of their turn-out all that time ago:
Horses, men, carriage—­all different now,
no doubt—­but of the precise stamp of fifteen
years before; the same neat display, the same nicely
calculated arrogance ease with security! The
swing exact, the pose of the sunshades exact, exact
the spirit of the whole thing.

And in the sunlight, defended by the haughty shields
of parasols, carriage after carriage went by.

“Uncle James has just passed, with his female
folk,” said young Jolyon.

His father looked black. “Did your uncle
see us? Yes? Hmph! What’s he
want, coming down into these parts?”

An empty cab drove up at this moment, and old Jolyon
stopped it.

“I shall see you again before long, my boy!”
he said. “Don’t you go paying any
attention to what I’ve been saying about young
Bosinney—­I don’t believe a word of
it!”

Kissing the children, who tried to detain him, he
stepped in and was borne away.

Young Jolyon, who had taken Holly up in his arms,
stood motionless at the corner, looking after the
cab.

CHAPTER VII

AFTERNOON AT TIMOTHY’S

If old Jolyon, as he got into his cab, had said:
’I won’t believe a word of it!’
he would more truthfully have expressed his sentiments.

The notion that James and his womankind had seen him
in the company of his son had awakened in him not
only the impatience he always felt when crossed, but
that secret hostility natural between brothers, the
roots of which—­little nursery rivalries—­sometimes
toughen and deepen as life goes on, and, all hidden,
support a plant capable of producing in season the
bitterest fruits.

Hitherto there had been between these six brothers
no more unfriendly feeling than that caused by the
secret and natural doubt that the others might be
richer than themselves; a feeling increased to the
pitch of curiosity by the approach of death—­that
end of all handicaps—­and the great ‘closeness’
of their man of business, who, with some sagacity,
would profess to Nicholas ignorance of James’
income, to James ignorance of old Jolyon’s,
to Jolyon ignorance of Roger’s, to Roger ignorance
of Swithin’s, while to Swithin he would say
most irritatingly that Nicholas must be a rich man.
Timothy alone was exempt, being in gilt-edged securities.

Page 111

But now, between two of them at least, had arisen
a very different sense of injury. From the moment
when James had the impertinence to pry into his affairs—­as
he put it—­old Jolyon no longer chose to
credit this story about Bosinney. His grand-daughter
slighted through a member of ‘that fellow’s’
family! He made up his mind that Bosinney was
maligned. There must be some other reason for
his defection.

June had flown out at him, or something; she was as
touchy as she could be!

He would, however, let Timothy have a bit of his mind,
and see if he would go on dropping hints! And
he would not let the grass grow under his feet either,
he would go there at once, and take very good care
that he didn’t have to go again on the same
errand.

He saw James’ carriage blocking the pavement
in front of ‘The Bower.’ So they
had got there before him—­cackling about
having seen him, he dared say! And further on,
Swithin’s greys were turning their noses towards
the noses of James’ bays, as though in conclave
over the family, while their coachmen were in conclave
above.

Old Jolyon, depositing his hat on the chair in the
narrow hall, where that hat of Bosinney’s had
so long ago been mistaken for a cat, passed his thin
hand grimly over his face with its great drooping white
moustaches, as though to remove all traces of expression,
and made his way upstairs.

He found the front drawing-room full. It was
full enough at the best of times—­without
visitors—­without any one in it—­for
Timothy and his sisters, following the tradition of
their generation, considered that a room was not quite
‘nice’ unless it was ‘properly’
furnished. It held, therefore, eleven chairs,
a sofa, three tables, two cabinets, innumerable knicknacks,
and part of a large grand piano. And now, occupied
by Mrs. Small, Aunt Hester, by Swithin, James, Rachel,
Winifred, Euphemia, who had come in again to return
‘Passion and Paregoric’ which she had read
at lunch, and her chum Frances, Roger’s daughter
(the musical Forsyte, the one who composed songs),
there was only one chair left unoccupied, except,
of course, the two that nobody ever sat on—­and
the only standing room was occupied by the cat, on
whom old Jolyon promptly stepped.

In these days it was by no means unusual for Timothy
to have so many visitors. The family had always,
one and all, had a real respect for Aunt Ann, and
now that she was gone, they were coming far more frequently
to The Bower, and staying longer.

Swithin had been the first to arrive, and seated torpid
in a red satin chair with a gilt back, he gave every
appearance of lasting the others out. And symbolizing
Bosinney’s name ‘the big one,’ with
his great stature and bulk, his thick white hair,
his puffy immovable shaven face, he looked more primeval
than ever in the highly upholstered room.

Page 112

His conversation, as usual of late, had turned at
once upon Irene, and he had lost no time in giving
Aunts Juley and Hester his opinion with regard to
this rumour he heard was going about. No—­as
he said—­she might want a bit of flirtation—­a
pretty woman must have her fling; but more than that
he did not believe. Nothing open; she had too
much good sense, too much proper appreciation of what
was due to her position, and to the family! No
sc..., he was going to say ‘scandal’ but
the very idea was so preposterous that he waved his
hand as though to say—­’but let that
pass!’

Granted that Swithin took a bachelor’s view
of the situation—­still what indeed was
not due to that family in which so many had done so
well for themselves, had attained a certain position?
If he had heard in dark, pessimistic moments the
words ‘yeomen’ and ‘very small beer’
used in connection with his origin, did he believe
them?

No! he cherished, hugging it pathetically to his bosom
the secret theory that there was something distinguished
somewhere in his ancestry.

“Must be,” he once said to young Jolyon,
before the latter went to the bad. “Look
at us, we’ve got on! There must be good
blood in us somewhere.”

He had been fond of young Jolyon: the boy had
been in a good set at College, had known that old
ruffian Sir Charles Fiste’s sons—­a
pretty rascal one of them had turned out, too; and
there was style about him—­it was a thousand
pities he had run off with that half-foreign governess!
If he must go off like that why couldn’t he have
chosen someone who would have done them credit!
And what was he now?—­an underwriter at Lloyd’s;
they said he even painted pictures—­pictures!
Damme! he might have ended as Sir Jolyon Forsyte,
Bart., with a seat in Parliament, and a place in the
country!

It was Swithin who, following the impulse which sooner
or later urges thereto some member of every great
family, went to the Heralds’ Office, where they
assured him that he was undoubtedly of the same family
as the well-known Forsites with an ‘i,’
whose arms were ’three dexter buckles on a sable
ground gules,’ hoping no doubt to get him to
take them up.

Swithin, however, did not do this, but having ascertained
that the crest was a ‘pheasant proper,’
and the motto ‘For Forsite,’ he had the
pheasant proper placed upon his carriage and the buttons
of his coachman, and both crest and motto on his writing-paper.
The arms he hugged to himself, partly because, not
having paid for them, he thought it would look ostentatious
to put them on his carriage, and he hated ostentation,
and partly because he, like any practical man all
over the country, had a secret dislike and contempt
for things he could not understand he found it hard,
as anyone might, to swallow ’three dexter buckles
on a sable ground gules.’

He never forgot, however, their having told him that
if he paid for them he would be entitled to use them,
and it strengthened his conviction that he was a gentleman.
Imperceptibly the rest of the family absorbed the
‘pheasant proper,’ and some, more serious
than others, adopted the motto; old Jolyon, however,
refused to use the latter, saying that it was humbug
meaning nothing, so far as he could see.

Page 113

Among the older generation it was perhaps known at
bottom from what great historical event they derived
their crest; and if pressed on the subject, sooner
than tell a lie—­they did not like telling
lies, having an impression that only Frenchmen and
Russians told them—­they would confess hurriedly
that Swithin had got hold of it somehow.

Among the younger generation the matter was wrapped
in a discretion proper. They did not want to
hurt the feelings of their elders, nor to feel ridiculous
themselves; they simply used the crest....

“No,” said Swithin, “he had had
an opportunity of seeing for himself, and what he
should say was, that there was nothing in her manner
to that young Buccaneer or Bosinney or whatever his
name was, different from her manner to himself; in
fact, he should rather say....” But here
the entrance of Frances and Euphemia put an unfortunate
stop to the conversation, for this was not a subject
which could be discussed before young people.

And though Swithin was somewhat upset at being stopped
like this on the point of saying something important,
he soon recovered his affability. He was rather
fond of Frances—­Francie, as she was called
in the family. She was so smart, and they told
him she made a pretty little pot of pin-money by her
songs; he called it very clever of her.

He rather prided himself indeed on a liberal attitude
towards women, not seeing any reason why they shouldn’t
paint pictures, or write tunes, or books even, for
the matter of that, especially if they could turn a
useful penny by it; not at all—­kept them
out of mischief. It was not as if they were
men!

‘Little Francie,’ as she was usually called
with good-natured contempt, was an important personage,
if only as a standing illustration of the attitude
of Forsytes towards the Arts. She was not really
‘little,’ but rather tall, with dark hair
for a Forsyte, which, together with a grey eye, gave
her what was called ‘a Celtic appearance.’
She wrote songs with titles like ‘Breathing
Sighs,’ or ‘Kiss me, Mother, ere I die,’
with a refrain like an anthem:

She wrote the words to them herself, and other poems.
In lighter moments she wrote waltzes, one of which,
the ‘Kensington Coil,’ was almost national
to Kensington, having a sweet dip in it.

It was very original. Then there were her ‘Songs
for Little People,’ at once educational and
witty, especially ‘Gran’ma’s Porgie,’
and that ditty, almost prophetically imbued with the
coming Imperial spirit, entitled ‘Black Him
In His Little Eye.’

Any publisher would take these, and reviews like ‘High
Living,’ and the ‘Ladies’ Genteel
Guide’ went into raptures over: ’Another
of Miss Francie Forsyte’s spirited ditties,
sparkling and pathetic. We ourselves were moved
to tears and laughter. Miss Forsyte should go
far.’

Page 114

With the true instinct of her breed, Francie had made
a point of knowing the right people—­people
who would write about her, and talk about her, and
people in Society, too—­keeping a mental
register of just where to exert her fascinations,
and an eye on that steady scale of rising prices,
which in her mind’s eye represented the future.
In this way she caused herself to be universally
respected.

Once, at a time when her emotions were whipped by
an attachment—­for the tenor of Roger’s
life, with its whole-hearted collection of house property,
had induced in his only daughter a tendency towards
passion—­she turned to great and sincere
work, choosing the sonata form, for the violin.
This was the only one of her productions that troubled
the Forsytes. They felt at once that it would
not sell.

Roger, who liked having a clever daughter well enough,
and often alluded to the amount of pocket-money she
made for herself, was upset by this violin sonata.

“Rubbish like that!” he called it.
Francie had borrowed young Flageoletti from Euphemia,
to play it in the drawing-room at Prince’s Gardens.

As a matter of fact Roger was right. It was
rubbish, but—­annoying! the sort of rubbish
that wouldn’t sell. As every Forsyte knows,
rubbish that sells is not rubbish at all—­far
from it.

And yet, in spite of the sound common sense which
fixed the worth of art at what it would fetch, some
of the Forsytes—­Aunt Hester, for instance,
who had always been musical—­could not help
regretting that Francie’s music was not ‘classical’;
the same with her poems. But then, as Aunt Hester
said, they didn’t see any poetry nowadays, all
the poems were ‘little light things.’

There was nobody who could write a poem like ‘Paradise
Lost,’ or ’Childe Harold’; either
of which made you feel that you really had read something.
Still, it was nice for Francie to have something to
occupy her; while other girls were spending money
shopping she was making it!

And both Aunt Hester and Aunt Juley were always ready
to listen to the latest story of how Francie had got
her price increased.

They listened now, together with Swithin, who sat
pretending not to, for these young people talked so
fast and mumbled so, he never could catch what they
said.

“And I can’t think,” said Mrs. Septimus,
“how you do it. I should never have the
audacity!”

Francie smiled lightly. “I’d much
rather deal with a man than a woman. Women are
so sharp!”

“My dear,” cried Mrs. Small, “I’m
sure we’re not.”

Euphemia went off into her silent laugh, and, ending
with the squeak, said, as though being strangled:
“Oh, you’ll kill me some day, auntie.”

Page 115

Swithin saw no necessity to laugh; he detested people
laughing when he himself perceived no joke.
Indeed, he detested Euphemia altogether, to whom he
always alluded as ’Nick’s daughter, what’s
she called—­the pale one?’ He had
just missed being her god-father—­indeed,
would have been, had he not taken a firm stand against
her outlandish name. He hated becoming a godfather.
Swithin then said to Francie with dignity: “It’s
a fine day—­er—­for the time of
year.” But Euphemia, who knew perfectly
well that he had refused to be her godfather, turned
to Aunt Hester, and began telling her how she had
seen Irene—­Mrs. Soames—­at the
Church and Commercial Stores.

“And Soames was with her?” said Aunt Hester,
to whom Mrs. Small had as yet had no opportunity of
relating the incident.

“Soames with her? Of course not!”

“But was she all alone in London?”

“Oh, no; there was Mr. Bosinney with her.
She was perfectly dressed.”

But Swithin, hearing the name Irene, looked severely
at Euphemia, who, it is true, never did look well
in a dress, whatever she may have done on other occasions,
and said:

“Dressed like a lady, I’ve no doubt.
It’s a pleasure to see her.”

At this moment James and his daughters were announced.
Dartie, feeling badly in want of a drink, had pleaded
an appointment with his dentist, and, being put down
at the Marble Arch, had got into a hansom, and was
already seated in the window of his club in Piccadilly.

His wife, he told his cronies, had wanted to take
him to pay some calls.
It was not in his line—­not exactly.
Haw!

Hailing the waiter, he sent him out to the hall to
see what had won the 4.30 race. He was dog-tired,
he said, and that was a fact; had been drivin’
about with his wife to ‘shows’ all the
afternoon. Had put his foot down at last.
A fellow must live his own life.

At this moment, glancing out of the bay window—­for
he loved this seat whence he could see everybody pass—­his
eye unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, chanced
to light on the figure of Soames, who was mousing
across the road from the Green Park-side, with the
evident intention of coming in, for he, too, belonged
to ‘The Iseeum.’

Dartie sprang to his feet; grasping his glass, he
muttered something about ‘that 4.30 race,’
and swiftly withdrew to the card-room, where Soames
never came. Here, in complete isolation and a
dim light, he lived his own life till half past seven,
by which hour he knew Soames must certainly have left
the club.

It would not do, as he kept repeating to himself whenever
he felt the impulse to join the gossips in the bay-window
getting too strong for him—­it absolutely
would not do, with finances as low as his, and the
‘old man’ (James) rusty ever since that
business over the oil shares, which was no fault of
his, to risk a row with Winifred.

Page 116

If Soames were to see him in the club it would be
sure to come round to her that he wasn’t at
the dentist’s at all. He never knew a family
where things ‘came round’ so. Uneasily,
amongst the green baize card-tables, a frown on his
olive coloured face, his check trousers crossed, and
patent-leather boots shining through the gloom, he
sat biting his forefinger, and wondering where the
deuce he was to get the money if Erotic failed to
win the Lancashire Cup.

His thoughts turned gloomily to the Forsytes.
What a set they were! There was no getting anything
out of them—­at least, it was a matter of
extreme difficulty. They were so d—–­d
particular about money matters; not a sportsman amongst
the lot, unless it were George. That fellow
Soames, for instance, would have a ft if you tried
to borrow a tenner from him, or, if he didn’t
have a fit, he looked at you with his cursed supercilious
smile, as if you were a lost soul because you were
in want of money.

And that wife of his (Dartie’s mouth watered
involuntarily), he had tried to be on good terms with
her, as one naturally would with any pretty sister-in-law,
but he would be cursed if the (he mentally used a coarse
word)—­would have anything to say to him—­she
looked at him, indeed, as if he were dirt—­and
yet she could go far enough, he wouldn’t mind
betting. He knew women; they weren’t made
with soft eyes and figures like that for nothing,
as that fellow Soames would jolly soon find out, if
there were anything in what he had heard about this
Buccaneer Johnny.

Rising from his chair, Dartie took a turn across the
room, ending in front of the looking-glass over the
marble chimney-piece; and there he stood for a long
time contemplating in the glass the reflection of his
face. It had that look, peculiar to some men,
of having been steeped in linseed oil, with its waxed
dark moustaches and the little distinguished commencements
of side whiskers; and concernedly he felt the promise
of a pimple on the side of his slightly curved and
fattish nose.

In the meantime old Jolyon had found the remaining
chair in Timothy’s commodious drawing-room.
His advent had obviously put a stop to the conversation,
decided awkwardness having set in. Aunt Juley,
with her well-known kindheartedness, hastened to set
people at their ease again.

“Yes, Jolyon,” she said, “we were
just saying that you haven’t been here for a
long time; but we mustn’t be surprised.
You’re busy, of course? James was just
saying what a busy time of year....”

“Was he?” said old Jolyon, looking hard
at James. “It wouldn’t be half so
busy if everybody minded their own business.”

James, brooding in a small chair from which his knees
ran uphill, shifted his feet uneasily, and put one
of them down on the cat, which had unwisely taken
refuge from old Jolyon beside him.

“Here, you’ve got a cat here,” he
said in an injured voice, withdrawing his foot nervously
as he felt it squeezing into the soft, furry body.

Page 117

“Several,” said old Jolyon, looking at
one face and another; “I trod on one just now.”

A silence followed.

Then Mrs. Small, twisting her fingers and gazing round
with ’pathetic calm’, asked: “And
how is dear June?”

A twinkle of humour shot through the sternness of
old Jolyon’s eyes. Extraordinary old woman,
Juley! No one quite like her for saying the
wrong thing!

“Bad!” he said; “London don’t
agree with her—­too many people about, too
much clatter and chatter by half.” He laid
emphasis on the words, and again looked James in the
face.

Nobody spoke.

A feeling of its being too dangerous to take a step
in any direction, or hazard any remark, had fallen
on them all. Something of the sense of the impending,
that comes over the spectator of a Greek tragedy, had
entered that upholstered room, filled with those white-haired,
frock-coated old men, and fashionably attired women,
who were all of the same blood, between all of whom
existed an unseizable resemblance.

Not that they were conscious of it—­the
visits of such fateful, bitter spirits are only felt.

Then Swithin rose. He would not sit there, feeling
like that—­he was not to be put down by
anyone! And, manoeuvring round the room with
added pomp, he shook hands with each separately.

“You tell Timothy from me,” he said, “that
he coddles himself too much!” Then, turning
to Francie, whom he considered ‘smart,’
he added: “You come with me for a drive
one of these days.” But this conjured up
the vision of that other eventful drive which had
been so much talked about, and he stood quite still
for a second, with glassy eyes, as though waiting to
catch up with the significance of what he himself had
said; then, suddenly recollecting that he didn’t
care a damn, he turned to old Jolyon: “Well,
good-bye, Jolyon! You shouldn’t go about
without an overcoat; you’ll be getting sciatica
or something!” And, kicking the cat slightly
with the pointed tip of his patent leather boot, he
took his huge form away.

When he had gone everyone looked secretly at the others,
to see how they had taken the mention of the word
’drive’—­the word which had become
famous, and acquired an overwhelming importance, as
the only official—­so to speak—­news
in connection with the vague and sinister rumour clinging
to the family tongue.

Euphemia, yielding to an impulse, said with a short
laugh: “I’m glad Uncle Swithin doesn’t
ask me to go for drives.”

Mrs. Small, to reassure her and smooth over any little
awkwardness the subject might have, replied:
“My dear, he likes to take somebody well dressed,
who will do him a little credit. I shall never
forget the drive he took me. It was an experience!”
And her chubby round old face was spread for a moment
with a strange contentment; then broke into pouts,
and tears came into her eyes. She was thinking
of that long ago driving tour she had once taken with
Septimus Small.

Page 118

James, who had relapsed into his nervous brooding
in the little chair, suddenly roused himself:
“He’s a funny fellow, Swithin,” he
said, but in a half-hearted way.

Old Jolyon’s silence, his stern eyes, held them
all in a kind of paralysis. He was disconcerted
himself by the effect of his own words—­an
effect which seemed to deepen the importance of the
very rumour he had come to scotch; but he was still
angry.

He had not done with them yet—­No, no—­he
would give them another rub or two.

He did not wish to rub his nieces, he had no quarrel
with them—­a young and presentable female
always appealed to old Jolyon’s clemency—­but
that fellow James, and, in a less degree perhaps,
those others, deserved all they would get. And
he, too, asked for Timothy.

As though feeling that some danger threatened her
younger brother, Aunt Juley suddenly offered him tea:
“There it is,” she said, “all cold
and nasty, waiting for you in the back drawing room,
but Smither shall make you some fresh.”

Old Jolyon rose: “Thank you,” he
said, looking straight at James, “but I’ve
no time for tea, and—­scandal, and the rest
of it! It’s time I was at home. Good-bye,
Julia; good-bye, Hester; good-bye, Winifred.”

Without more ceremonious adieux, he marched out.

Once again in his cab, his anger evaporated, for so
it ever was with his wrath—­when he had
rapped out, it was gone. Sadness came over his
spirit. He had stopped their mouths, maybe, but
at what a cost! At the cost of certain knowledge
that the rumour he had been resolved not to believe
was true. June was abandoned, and for the wife
of that fellow’s son! He felt it was true,
and hardened himself to treat it as if it were not;
but the pain he hid beneath this resolution began slowly,
surely, to vent itself in a blind resentment against
James and his son.

The six women and one man left behind in the little
drawing-room began talking as easily as might be after
such an occurrence, for though each one of them knew
for a fact that he or she never talked scandal, each
one of them also knew that the other six did; all
were therefore angry and at a loss. James only
was silent, disturbed, to the bottom of his soul.

Presently Francie said: “Do you know, I
think Uncle Jolyon is terribly changed this last year.
What do you think, Aunt Hester?”

No one else was afraid of assenting, and James muttered
gloomily at the floor: “He’s not
half the man he was.”

“I’ve noticed it a long time,” went
on Francie; “he’s aged tremendously.”

Aunt Juley shook her head; her face seemed suddenly
to have become one immense pout.

“Poor dear Jolyon,” she said, “somebody
ought to see to it for him!”

There was again silence; then, as though in terror
of being left solitarily behind, all five visitors
rose simultaneously, and took their departure.

Page 119

Mrs. Small, Aunt Hester, and their cat were left once
more alone, the sound of a door closing in the distance
announced the approach of Timothy.

That evening, when Aunt Hester had just got off to
sleep in the back bedroom that used to be Aunt Juley’s
before Aunt Juley took Aunt Ann’s, her door
was opened, and Mrs. Small, in a pink night-cap, a
candle in her hand, entered: “Hester!”
she said. “Hester!”

Aunt Hester faintly rustled the sheet.

“Hester,” repeated Aunt Juley, to make
quite sure that she had awakened her, “I am
quite troubled about poor dear Jolyon. What,”
Aunt Juley dwelt on the word, “do you think
ought to be done?”

Aunt Hester again rustled the sheet, her voice was
heard faintly pleading: “Done? How
should I know?”

Aunt Juley turned away satisfied, and closing the
door with extra gentleness so as not to disturb dear
Hester, let it slip through her fingers and fall to
with a ‘crack.’

Back in her own room, she stood at the window gazing
at the moon over the trees in the Park, through a
chink in the muslin curtains, close drawn lest anyone
should see. And there, with her face all round
and pouting in its pink cap, and her eyes wet, she
thought of ‘dear Jolyon,’ so old and so
lonely, and how she could be of some use to him; and
how he would come to love her, as she had never been
loved since—­since poor Septimus went away.

CHAPTER VIII

DANCE AT ROGER’S

Roger’s house in Prince’s Gardens was
brilliantly alight. Large numbers of wax candles
had been collected and placed in cut-glass chandeliers,
and the parquet floor of the long, double drawing-room
reflected these constellations. An appearance
of real spaciousness had been secured by moving out
all the furniture on to the upper landings, and enclosing
the room with those strange appendages of civilization
known as ‘rout’ seats. In a remote
corner, embowered in palms, was a cottage piano, with
a copy of the ‘Kensington Coil’ open on
the music-stand.

Roger had objected to a band. He didn’t
see in the least what they wanted with a band; he
wouldn’t go to the expense, and there was an
end of it. Francie (her mother, whom Roger had
long since reduced to chronic dyspepsia, went to bed
on such occasions), had been obliged to content herself
with supplementing the piano by a young man who played
the cornet, and she so arranged with palms that anyone
who did not look into the heart of things might imagine
there were several musicians secreted there.
She made up her mind to tell them to play loud—­there
was a lot of music in a cornet, if the man would only
put his soul into it.

In the more cultivated American tongue, she was ‘through’
at last—­through that tortuous labyrinth
of make-shifts, which must be traversed before fashionable
display can be combined with the sound economy of
a Forsyte. Thin but brilliant, in her maize-coloured
frock with much tulle about the shoulders, she went
from place to place, fitting on her gloves, and casting
her eye over it all.

Page 120

To the hired butler (for Roger only kept maids) she
spoke about the wine. Did he quite understand
that Mr. Forsyte wished a dozen bottles of the champagne
from Whiteley’s to be put out? But if that
were finished (she did not suppose it would be, most
of the ladies would drink water, no doubt), but if
it were, there was the champagne cup, and he must do
the best he could with that.

She hated having to say this sort of thing to a butler,
it was so infra dig.; but what could you do with father?
Roger, indeed, after making himself consistently
disagreeable about the dance, would come down presently,
with his fresh colour and bumpy forehead, as though
he had been its promoter; and he would smile, and
probably take the prettiest woman in to supper; and
at two o’clock, just as they were getting into
the swing, he would go up secretly to the musicians
and tell them to play ‘God Save the Queen,’
and go away.

Francie devoutly hoped he might soon get tired, and
slip off to bed.

The three or four devoted girl friends who were staying
in the house for this dance had partaken with her,
in a small, abandoned room upstairs, of tea and cold
chicken-legs, hurriedly served; the men had been sent
out to dine at Eustace’s Club, it being felt
that they must be fed up.

Punctually on the stroke of nine arrived Mrs. Small
alone. She made elaborate apologies for the
absence of Timothy, omitting all mention of Aunt Hester,
who, at the last minute, had said she could not be
bothered. Francie received her effusively, and
placed her on a rout seat, where she left her, pouting
and solitary in lavender-coloured satin—­the
first time she had worn colour since Aunt Ann’s
death.

The devoted maiden friends came now from their rooms,
each by magic arrangement in a differently coloured
frock, but all with the same liberal allowance of
tulle on the shoulders and at the bosom—­for
they were, by some fatality, lean to a girl.
They were all taken up to Mrs. Small. None
stayed with her more than a few seconds, but clustering
together talked and twisted their programmes, looking
secretly at the door for the first appearance of a
man.

Then arrived in a group a number of Nicholases, always
punctual—­the fashion up Ladbroke Grove
way; and close behind them Eustace and his men, gloomy
and smelling rather of smoke.

Three or four of Francie’s lovers now appeared,
one after the other; she had made each promise to
come early. They were all clean-shaven and sprightly,
with that peculiar kind of young-man sprightliness
which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not
seem to mind each other’s presence in the least,
and wore their ties bunching out at the ends, white
waistcoats, and socks with clocks. All had handkerchiefs
concealed in their cuffs. They moved buoyantly,
each armoured in professional gaiety, as though he
had come to do great deeds. Their faces when
they danced, far from wearing the traditional solemn
look of the dancing Englishman, were irresponsible,
charming, suave; they bounded, twirling their partners
at great pace, without pedantic attention to the rhythm
of the music.

Page 121

At other dancers they looked with a kind of airy scorn—­they,
the light brigade, the heroes of a hundred Kensington
’hops’—­from whom alone could
the right manner and smile and step be hoped.

After this the stream came fast; chaperones silting
up along the wall facing the entrance, the volatile
element swelling the eddy in the larger room.

Men were scarce, and wallflowers wore their peculiar,
pathetic expression, a patient, sourish smile which
seemed to say: “Oh, no! don’t mistake
me, I know you are not coming up to me. I can
hardly expect that!” And Francie would plead
with one of her lovers, or with some callow youth:
“Now, to please me, do let me introduce you to
Miss Pink; such a nice girl, really!” and she
would bring him up, and say: “Miss Pink—­Mr.
Gathercole. Can you spare him a dance?”
Then Miss Pink, smiling her forced smile, colouring
a little, answered: “Oh! I think so!”
and screening her empty card, wrote on it the name
of Gathercole, spelling it passionately in the district
that he proposed, about the second extra.

But when the youth had murmured that it was hot, and
passed, she relapsed into her attitude of hopeless
expectation, into her patient, sourish smile.

Mothers, slowly fanning their faces, watched their
daughters, and in their eyes could be read all the
story of those daughters’ fortunes. As
for themselves, to sit hour after hour, dead tired,
silent, or talking spasmodically—­what did
it matter, so long as the girls were having a good
time! But to see them neglected and passed by!
Ah! they smiled, but their eyes stabbed like the
eyes of an offended swan; they longed to pluck young
Gathercole by the slack of his dandified breeches,
and drag him to their daughters—­the jackanapes!

And all the cruelties and hardness of life, its pathos
and unequal chances, its conceit, self-forgetfulness,
and patience, were presented on the battle-field of
this Kensington ball-room.

Here and there, too, lovers—­not lovers
like Francie’s, a peculiar breed, but simply
lovers—­trembling, blushing, silent, sought
each other by flying glances, sought to meet and touch
in the mazes of the dance, and now and again dancing
together, struck some beholder by the light in their
eyes.

Not a second before ten o’clock came the Jameses—­Emily,
Rachel, Winifred (Dartie had been left behind, having
on a former occasion drunk too much of Roger’s
champagne), and Cicely, the youngest, making her debut;
behind them, following in a hansom from the paternal
mansion where they had dined, Soames and Irene.

All these ladies had shoulder-straps and no tulle—­thus
showing at once, by a bolder exposure of flesh, that
they came from the more fashionable side of the Park.

Soames, sidling back from the contact of the dancers,
took up a position against the wall. Guarding
himself with his pale smile, he stood watching.
Waltz after waltz began and ended, couple after couple
brushed by with smiling lips, laughter, and snatches
of talk; or with set lips, and eyes searching the
throng; or again, with silent, parted lips, and eyes
on each other. And the scent of festivity, the
odour of flowers, and hair, of essences that women
love, rose suffocatingly in the heat of the summer
night.

Page 122

Silent, with something of scorn in his smile, Soames
seemed to notice nothing; but now and again his eyes,
finding that which they sought, would fix themselves
on a point in the shifting throng, and the smile die
off his lips.

He danced with no one. Some fellows danced with
their wives; his sense of ‘form’ had never
permitted him to dance with Irene since their marriage,
and the God of the Forsytes alone can tell whether
this was a relief to him or not.

She passed, dancing with other men, her dress, iris-coloured,
floating away from her feet. She danced well;
he was tired of hearing women say with an acid smile:
“How beautifully your wife dances, Mr. Forsyte—­it’s
quite a pleasure to watch her!” Tired of answering
them with his sidelong glance: “You think
so?”

A young couple close by flirted a fan by turns, making
an unpleasant draught. Francie and one of her
lovers stood near. They were talking of love.

He heard Roger’s voice behind, giving an order
about supper to a servant. Everything was very
second-class! He wished that he had not come!
He had asked Irene whether she wanted him; she had
answered with that maddening smile of hers “Oh,
no!”

Why had he come? For the last quarter of an
hour he had not even seen her. Here was George
advancing with his Quilpish face; it was too late
to get out of his way.

“Have you seen ’The Buccaneer’?”
said this licensed wag; “he’s on the warpath—­hair
cut and everything!”

Soames said he had not, and crossing the room, half-empty
in an interval of the dance, he went out on the balcony,
and looked down into the street.

A carriage had driven up with late arrivals, and round
the door hung some of those patient watchers of the
London streets who spring up to the call of light
or music; their faces, pale and upturned above their
black and rusty figures, had an air of stolid watching
that annoyed Soames. Why were they allowed to
hang about; why didn’t the bobby move them on?

But the policeman took no notice of them; his feet
were planted apart on the strip of crimson carpet
stretched across the pavement; his face, under the
helmet, wore the same stolid, watching look as theirs.

Across the road, through the railings, Soames could
see the branches of trees shining, faintly stirring
in the breeze, by the gleam of the street lamps; beyond,
again, the upper lights of the houses on the other
side, so many eyes looking down on the quiet blackness
of the garden; and over all, the sky, that wonderful
London sky, dusted with the innumerable reflection
of countless lamps; a dome woven over between its stars
with the refraction of human needs and human fancies—­immense
mirror of pomp and misery that night after night stretches
its kindly mocking over miles of houses and gardens,
mansions and squalor, over Forsytes, policemen, and
patient watchers in the streets.

Soames turned away, and, hidden in the recess, gazed
into the lighted room. It was cooler out there.
He saw the new arrivals, June and her grandfather,
enter. What had made them so late? They
stood by the doorway. They looked fagged.
Fancy Uncle Jolyon turning out at this time of night!
Why hadn’t June come to Irene, as she usually
did, and it occurred to him suddenly that he had seen
nothing of June for a long time now.

Page 123

Watching her face with idle malice, he saw it change,
grow so pale that he thought she would drop, then
flame out crimson. Turning to see at what she
was looking, he saw his wife on Bosinney’s arm,
coming from the conservatory at the end of the room.
Her eyes were raised to his, as though answering
some question he had asked, and he was gazing at her
intently.

Soames looked again at June. Her hand rested
on old Jolyon’s arm; she seemed to be making
a request. He saw a surprised look on his uncle’s
face; they turned and passed through the door out of
his sight.

The music began again—­a waltz—­and,
still as a statue in the recess of the window, his
face unmoved, but no smile on his lips, Soames waited.
Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his wife
and Bosinney passed. He caught the perfume of
the gardenias that she wore, saw the rise and fall
of her bosom, the languor in her eyes, her parted lips,
and a look on her face that he did not know.
To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and
it seemed to him that they clung to each other; he
saw her raise her eyes, soft and dark, to Bosinney’s,
and drop them again.

Very white, he turned back to the balcony, and leaning
on it, gazed down on the Square; the figures were
still there looking up at the light with dull persistency,
the policeman’s face, too, upturned, and staring,
but he saw nothing of them. Below, a carriage
drew up, two figures got in, and drove away....

That evening June and old Jolyon sat down to dinner
at the usual hour. The girl was in her customary
high-necked frock, old Jolyon had not dressed.

At breakfast she had spoken of the dance at Uncle
Roger’s, she wanted to go; she had been stupid
enough, she said, not to think of asking anyone to
take her. It was too late now.

Old Jolyon lifted his keen eyes. June was used
to go to dances with Irene as a matter of course!
and deliberately fixing his gaze on her, he asked:
“Why don’t you get Irene?”

No! June did not want to ask Irene; she would
only go if—­if her grandfather wouldn’t
mind just for once for a little time!

At her look, so eager and so worn, old Jolyon had
grumblingly consented. He did not know what she
wanted, he said, with going to a dance like this,
a poor affair, he would wager; and she no more fit
for it than a cat! What she wanted was sea air,
and after his general meeting of the Globular Gold
Concessions he was ready to take her. She didn’t
want to go away? Ah! she would knock herself
up! Stealing a mournful look at her, he went
on with his breakfast.

June went out early, and wandered restlessly about
in the heat. Her little light figure that lately
had moved so languidly about its business, was all
on fire. She bought herself some flowers.
She wanted—­she meant to look her best.
He would be there! She knew well enough that
he had a card. She would show him that she did
not care. But deep down in her heart she resolved
that evening to win him back. She came in flushed,
and talked brightly all lunch; old Jolyon was there,
and he was deceived.

Page 124

In the afternoon she was overtaken by a desperate
fit of sobbing. She strangled the noise against
the pillows of her bed, but when at last it ceased
she saw in the glass a swollen face with reddened eyes,
and violet circles round them. She stayed in
the darkened room till dinner time.

All through that silent meal the struggle went on
within her.

She looked so shadowy and exhausted that old Jolyon
told ‘Sankey’ to countermand the carriage,
he would not have her going out.... She was to
go to bed! She made no resistance. She
went up to her room, and sat in the dark. At
ten o’clock she rang for her maid.

“Bring some hot water, and go down and tell
Mr. Forsyte that I feel perfectly rested. Say
that if he’s too tired I can go to the dance
by myself.”

The maid looked askance, and June turned on her imperiously.
“Go,” she said, “bring the hot water
at once!”

Her ball-dress still lay on the sofa, and with a sort
of fierce care she arrayed herself, took the flowers
in her hand, and went down, her small face carried
high under its burden of hair. She could hear
old Jolyon in his room as she passed.

Bewildered and vexed, he was dressing. It was
past ten, they would not get there till eleven; the
girl was mad. But he dared not cross her—­the
expression of her face at dinner haunted him.

With great ebony brushes he smoothed his hair till
it shone like silver under the light; then he, too,
came out on the gloomy staircase.

June met him below, and, without a word, they went
to the carriage.

When, after that drive which seemed to last for ever,
she entered Roger’s drawing-room, she disguised
under a mask of resolution a very torment of nervousness
and emotion. The feeling of shame at what might
be called ‘running after him’ was smothered
by the dread that he might not be there, that she
might not see him after all, and by that dogged resolve—­somehow,
she did not know how—­to win him back.

The sight of the ballroom, with its gleaming floor,
gave her a feeling of joy, of triumph, for she loved
dancing, and when dancing she floated, so light was
she, like a strenuous, eager little spirit. He
would surely ask her to dance, and if he danced with
her it would all be as it was before. She looked
about her eagerly.

The sight of Bosinney coming with Irene from the conservatory,
with that strange look of utter absorption on his
face, struck her too suddenly. They had not seen—­no
one should see—­her distress, not even her
grandfather.

She put her hand on Jolyon’s arm, and said very
low:

“I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”

He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he
had known how it would be.

To her he said nothing; only when they were once more
in the carriage, which by some fortunate chance had
lingered near the door, he asked her: “What
is it, my darling?”

Page 125

Feeling her whole slender body shaken by sobs, he
was terribly alarmed. She must have Blank to-morrow.
He would insist upon it. He could not have
her like this.... There, there!

June mastered her sobs, and squeezing his hand feverishly,
she lay back in her corner, her face muffled in a
shawl.

He could only see her eyes, fixed and staring in the
dark, but he did not cease to stroke her hand with
his thin fingers.

CHAPTER IX

EVENING AT RICHMOND

Other eyes besides the eyes of June and of Soames
had seen ‘those two’ (as Euphemia had
already begun to call them) coming from the conservatory;
other eyes had noticed the look on Bosinney’s
face.

There are moments when Nature reveals the passion
hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods—­violent
spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the
purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single
star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against
the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark
guardian of some fiery secret.

There are moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the
casual spectator as ‘......Titian--remarkably fine,’ breaks through the
defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and
holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he
feels—­there are things here which—­well, which are things. Something
unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with
the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the glow
of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and
conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal
of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse
of what lay under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he
should know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he
should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit that,
and where was he? One paid a shilling for entrance, and another for the
programme.

The look which June had seen, which other Forsytes
had seen, was like the sudden flashing of a candle
through a hole in some imaginary canvas, behind which
it was being moved—­the sudden flaming-out
of a vague, erratic glow, shadowy and enticing.
It brought home to onlookers the consciousness that
dangerous forces were at work. For a moment they
noticed it with pleasure, with interest, then felt
they must not notice it at all.

It supplied, however, the reason of June’s coming
so late and disappearing again without dancing, without
even shaking hands with her lover. She was ill,
it was said, and no wonder.

But here they looked at each other guiltily.
They had no desire to spread scandal, no desire to
be ill-natured. Who would have? And to
outsiders no word was breathed, unwritten law keeping
them silent.

Page 126

Then came the news that June had gone to the seaside
with old Jolyon.

He had carried her off to Broadstairs, for which place
there was just then a feeling, Yarmouth having lost
caste, in spite of Nicholas, and no Forsyte going
to the sea without intending to have an air for his
money such as would render him bilious in a week.
That fatally aristocratic tendency of the first Forsyte
to drink Madeira had left his descendants undoubtedly
accessible.

So June went to the sea. The family awaited
developments; there was nothing else to do.

But how far—­how far had ‘those two’
gone? How far were they going to go? Could
they really be going at all? Nothing could surely
come of it, for neither of them had any money.
At the most a flirtation, ending, as all such attachments
should, at the proper time.

Soames’ sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed
with the breezes of Mayfair—­she lived in
Green Street—­more fashionable principles
in regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current,
for instance, in Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea
of there being anything in it. The ’little
thing’—­Irene was taller than herself,
and it was real testimony to the solid worth of a
Forsyte that she should always thus be a ’little
thing’—­the little thing was bored.
Why shouldn’t she amuse herself? Soames
was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney—­only
that buffoon George would have called him the Buccaneer—­she
maintained that he was very chic.

This dictum—­that Bosinney was chic—­caused
quit a sensation. It failed to convince.
That he was ‘good-looking in a way’ they
were prepared to admit, but that anyone could call
a man with his pronounced cheekbones, curious eyes,
and soft felt hats chic was only another instance of
Winifred’s extravagant way of running after something
new.

It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable,
when the very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees
spread with blossom, and flowers drenched in perfume,
as they had never been before; when roses blew in
every garden; and for the swarming stars the nights
had hardly space; when every day and all day long
the sun, in full armour, swung his brazen shield above
the Park, and people did strange things, lunching and
dining in the open air. Unprecedented was the
tale of cabs and carriages that streamed across the
bridges of the shining river, bearing the upper-middle
class in thousands to the green glories of Bushey,
Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every
family with any pretensions to be of the carriage-class
paid one visit that year to the horse-chestnuts at
Bushey, or took one drive amongst the Spanish chestnuts
of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily,
along, in a cloud of their own creation, they would
stare fashionably at the antlered heads which the great
slow deer raised out of a forest of bracken that promised
to autumn lovers such cover as was never seen before.
And now and again, as the amorous perfume of chestnut
flowers and of fern was drifted too near, one would
say to the other: “My dear! What a
peculiar scent!”

Page 127

And the lime-flowers that year were of rare prime,
near honey-coloured. At the corners of London
squares they gave out, as the sun went down, a perfume
sweeter than the honey bees had taken—­a
perfume that stirred a yearning unnamable in the hearts
of Forsytes and their peers, taking the cool after
dinner in the precincts of those gardens to which they
alone had keys.

And that yearning made them linger amidst the dim
shapes of flower-beds in the failing daylight, made
them turn, and turn, and turn again, as though lovers
were waiting for them—­waiting for the last
light to die away under the shadow of the branches.

Some vague sympathy evoked by the scent of the limes,
some sisterly desire to see for herself, some idea
of demonstrating the soundness of her dictum that
there was ‘nothing in it’; or merely the
craving to drive down to Richmond, irresistible that
summer, moved the mother of the little Darties (of
little Publius, of Imogen, Maud, and Benedict) to
write the following note to her sister-in-law:

’DearIrene, ’June 30.

’I hear that Soames is going to Henley tomorrow
for the night. I thought it would be great fun
if we made up a little party and drove down to, Richmond.
Will you ask Mr. Bosinney, and I will get young Flippard.

’Emily (they called their mother Emily—­it
was so chic) will lend us the carriage. I will
call for you and your young man at seven o’clock.

’Your affectionate sister,
’WinifredDartie.

’Montague believes the dinner at the Crown and
Sceptre to be quite eatable.’

Montague was Dartie’s second and better known
name—­his first being Moses; for he was
nothing if not a man of the world.

Her plan met with more opposition from Providence
than so benevolent a scheme deserved. In the
first place young Flippard wrote:

’Dear Mrs. Dartie,

’Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep.

’Yours,
‘AugustusFlippard.’

It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to
remedy this misfortune. With the promptitude
and conduct of a mother, Winifred fell back on her
husband. She had, indeed, the decided but tolerant
temperament that goes with a good deal of profile,
fair hair, and greenish eyes. She was seldom
or never at a loss; or if at a loss, was always able
to convert it into a gain.

Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had
failed to win the Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that
celebrated animal, owned as he was by a pillar of
the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands against
him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours
that followed his scratching were among the darkest
in Dartie’s life.

Visions of James haunted him day and night.
Black thoughts about Soames mingled with the faintest
hopes. On the Friday night he got drunk, so
greatly was he affected. But on Saturday morning
the true Stock Exchange instinct triumphed within
him. Owing some hundreds, which by no possibility
could he pay, he went into town and put them all on
Concertina for the Saltown Borough Handicap.

Page 128

As he said to Major Scrotton, with whom he lunched
at the Iseeum: “That little Jew boy, Nathans,
had given him the tip. He didn’t care a
cursh. He wash in—­a mucker.
If it didn’t come up—­well then, damme,
the old man would have to pay!”

A bottle of Pol Roger to his own cheek had given him
a new contempt for James.

It came up. Concertina was squeezed home by
her neck—­a terrible squeak! But, as
Dartie said: There was nothing like pluck!

He was by no means averse to the expedition to Richmond.
He would ‘stand’ it himself! He
cherished an admiration for Irene, and wished to be
on more playful terms with her.

At half-past five the Park Lane footman came round
to say: Mrs. Forsyte was very sorry, but one
of the horses was coughing!

Undaunted by this further blow, Winifred at once despatched
little Publius (now aged seven) with the nursery governess
to Montpellier Square.

They would go down in hansoms and meet at the Crown
and Sceptre at 7.45.

Dartie, on being told, was pleased enough. It
was better than going down with your back to the horses!
He had no objection to driving down with Irene.
He supposed they would pick up the others at Montpellier
Square, and swop hansoms there?

Informed that the meet was at the Crown and Sceptre,
and that he would have to drive with his wife, he
turned sulky, and said it was d—–­d
slow!

At seven o’clock they started, Dartie offering
to bet the driver half-a-crown he didn’t do
it in the three-quarters of an hour.

Twice only did husband and wife exchange remarks on
the way.

Dartie said: “It’ll put Master Soames’s
nose out of joint to hear his wife’s been drivin’
in a hansom with Master Bosinney!”

Winifred replied: “Don’t talk such
nonsense, Monty!”

“Nonsense!” repeated Dartie. “You
don’t know women, my fine lady!”

On the other occasion he merely asked: “How
am I looking? A bit puffy about the gills?
That fizz old George is so fond of is a windy wine!”

He had been lunching with George Forsyte at the Haversnake.

Bosinney and Irene had arrived before them.
They were standing in one of the long French windows
overlooking the river.

Windows that summer were open all day long, and all
night too, and day and night the scents of flowers
and trees came in, the hot scent of parching grass,
and the cool scent of the heavy dews.

To the eye of the observant Dartie his two guests
did not appear to be making much running, standing
there close together, without a word. Bosinney
was a hungry-looking creature—­not much go
about him.

He left them to Winifred, however, and busied himself
to order the dinner.

A Forsyte will require good, if not delicate feeding,
but a Dartie will tax the resources of a Crown and
Sceptre. Living as he does, from hand to mouth,
nothing is too good for him to eat; and he will eat
it. His drink, too, will need to be carefully
provided; there is much drink in this country ‘not
good enough’ for a Dartie; he will have the best.
Paying for things vicariously, there is no reason why
he should stint himself. To stint yourself is
the mark of a fool, not of a Dartie.

Page 129

The best of everything! No sounder principle
on which a man can base his life, whose father-in-law
has a very considerable income, and a partiality for
his grandchildren.

With his not unable eye Dartie had spotted this weakness
in James the very first year after little Publius’s
arrival (an error); he had profited by his perspicacity.
Four little Darties were now a sort of perpetual
insurance.

The feature of the feast was unquestionably the red
mullet. This delectable fish, brought from a
considerable distance in a state of almost perfect
preservation, was first fried, then boned, then served
in ice, with Madeira punch in place of sauce, according
to a recipe known to a few men of the world.

Nothing else calls for remark except the payment of
the bill by Dartie.

He had made himself extremely agreeable throughout
the meal; his bold, admiring stare seldom abandoning
Irene’s face and figure. As he was obliged
to confess to himself, he got no change out of her—­she
was cool enough, as cool as her shoulders looked under
their veil of creamy lace. He expected to have
caught her out in some little game with Bosinney; but
not a bit of it, she kept up her end remarkably well.
As for that architect chap, he was as glum as a bear
with a sore head—­Winifred could barely
get a word out of him; he ate nothing, but he certainly
took his liquor, and his face kept getting whiter,
and his eyes looked queer.

It was all very amusing.

For Dartie himself was in capital form, and talked
freely, with a certain poignancy, being no fool.
He told two or three stories verging on the improper,
a concession to the company, for his stories were not
used to verging. He proposed Irene’s health
in a mock speech. Nobody drank it, and Winifred
said: “Don’t be such a clown, Monty!”

At her suggestion they went after dinner to the public
terrace overlooking the river.

“I should like to see the common people making
love,” she said, “it’s such fun!”

There were numbers of them walking in the cool, after
the day’s heat, and the air was alive with the
sound of voices, coarse and loud, or soft as though
murmuring secrets.

It was not long before Winifred’s better sense—­she
was the only Forsyte present—­secured them
an empty bench. They sat down in a row.
A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads,
and the haze darkened slowly over the river.

Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney,
then Winifred. There was hardly room for four,
and the man of the world could feel Irene’s
arm crushed against his own; he knew that she could
not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this amused
him; he devised every now and again a movement that
would bring her closer still. He thought:
’That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t have it
all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit,
certainly!’

From far down below on the dark river came drifting
the tinkle of a mandoline, and voices singing the
old round:

Page 130

’A boat, a boat, unto the ferry, For we’ll
go over and be merry; And laugh, and quaff, and drink
brown sherry!’

And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender,
floating up on her back from behind a tree; and as
though she had breathed, the air was cooler, but down
that cooler air came always the warm odour of the limes.

Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who
was sitting with his arms crossed, staring straight
in front of him, and on his face the look of a man
being tortured.

And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled
by the overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker
piece of the darkness shaped and breathed on; soft,
mysterious, enticing.

A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all
the strollers were thinking secrets too precious to
be spoken.

And Dartie thought: ‘Women!’

The glow died above the river, the singing ceased;
the young moon hid behind a tree, and all was dark.
He pressed himself against Irene.

He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through
the limbs he touched, or at the troubled, scornful
look of her eyes. He felt her trying to draw
herself away, and smiled.

It must be confessed that the man of the world had
drunk quite as much as was good for him.

With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches,
and his bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious
look of a satyr.

Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the
tree tops the stars clustered forth; like mortals
beneath, they seemed to shift and swarm and whisper.
Then on the terrace the buzz broke out once more,
and Dartie thought: ‘Ah! he’s a poor,
hungry-looking devil, that Bosinney!’ and again
he pressed himself against Irene.

The movement deserved a better success. She
rose, and they all followed her.

The man of the world was more than ever determined
to see what she was made of. Along the terrace
he kept close at her elbow. He had within him
much good wine. There was the long drive home,
the long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant
closeness of the hansom cab—­with its insulation
from the world devised by some great and good man.
That hungry architect chap might drive with his wife—­he
wished him joy of her! And, conscious that his
voice was not too steady, he was careful not to speak;
but a smile had become fixed on his thick lips.

They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them
at the farther end. His plan had the merit of
all great plans, an almost brutal simplicity he would
merely keep at her elbow till she got in, and get in
quickly after her.

But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in;
she slipped, instead, to the horse’s head.
Dartie was not at the moment sufficiently master of
his legs to follow. She stood stroking the horse’s
nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side
first. She turned and spoke to him rapidly,
in a low voice; the words ‘That man’ reached
Dartie. He stood stubbornly by the cab step,
waiting for her to come back. He knew a trick
worth two of that!

Page 131

Here, in the lamp-light, his figure (no more than
medium height), well squared in its white evening
waistcoat, his light overcoat flung over his arm,
a pink flower in his button-hole, and on his dark face
that look of confident, good-humoured insolence, he
was at his best—­a thorough man of the world.

Winifred was already in her cab. Dartie reflected
that Bosinney would have a poorish time in that cab
if he didn’t look sharp! Suddenly he received
a push which nearly overturned him in the road.
Bosinney’s voice hissed in his ear: “I
am taking Irene back; do you understand?” He
saw a face white with passion, and eyes that glared
at him like a wild cat’s.

“Eh?” he stammered. “What?
Not a bit. You take my wife!”

“Get away!” hissed Bosinney—­“or
I’ll throw you into the road!”

Dartie recoiled; he saw as plainly as possible that
the fellow meant it. In the space he made Irene
had slipped by, her dress brushed his legs. Bosinney
stepped in after her.

“Go on!” he heard the Buccaneer cry.
The cabman flicked his horse. It sprang forward.

Dartie stood for a moment dumbfounded; then, dashing
at the cab where his wife sat, he scrambled in.

“Drive on!” he shouted to the driver,
“and don’t you lose sight of that fellow
in front!”

Seated by his wife’s side, he burst into imprecations.
Calming himself at last with a supreme effort, he
added: “A pretty mess you’ve made
of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why
on earth couldn’t you keep hold of him?
He’s mad with love; any fool can see that!”

He drowned Winifred’s rejoinder with fresh calls
to the Almighty; nor was it until they reached Barnes
that he ceased a Jeremiad, in the course of which
he had abused her, her father, her brother, Irene,
Bosinney, the name of Forsyte, his own children, and
cursed the day when he had ever married.

Winifred, a woman of strong character, let him have
his say, at the end of which he lapsed into sulky
silence. His angry eyes never deserted the back
of that cab, which, like a lost chance, haunted the
darkness in front of him.

Fortunately he could not hear Bosinney’s passionate
pleading—­that pleading which the man of
the world’s conduct had let loose like a flood;
he could not see Irene shivering, as though some garment
had been torn from her, nor her eyes, black and mournful,
like the eyes of a beaten child. He could not
hear Bosinney entreating, entreating, always entreating;
could not hear her sudden, soft weeping, nor see that
poor, hungry-looking devil, awed and trembling, humbly
touching her hand.

In Montpellier Square their cabman, following his
instructions to the letter, faithfully drew up behind
the cab in front. The Darties saw Bosinney spring
out, and Irene follow, and hasten up the steps with
bent head. She evidently had her key in her
hand, for she disappeared at once. It was impossible
to tell whether she had turned to speak to Bosinney.

Page 132

The latter came walking past their cab; both husband
and wife had an admirable view of his face in the
light of a street lamp. It was working with
violent emotion.

“Good-night, Mr. Bosinney!” called Winifred.

Bosinney started, clawed off his hat, and hurried
on. He had obviously forgotten their existence.

“There!” said Dartie, “did you see
the beast’s face? What did I say?
Fine games!” He improved the occasion.

There had so clearly been a crisis in the cab that
Winifred was unable to defend her theory.

She said: “I shall say nothing about it.
I don’t see any use in making a fuss!”

With that view Dartie at once concurred; looking upon
James as a private preserve, he disapproved of his
being disturbed by the troubles of others.

Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in
Green Street, the rent of which was paid by James,
and sought a well-earned rest. The hour was
midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in the streets
to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him
return and stand against the rails of the Square garden,
back from the glow of the street lamp; to see him
stand there in the shadow of trees, watching the house
where in the dark was hidden she whom he would have
given the world to see for a single minute—­she
who was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the
meaning of the light and the darkness, the very beating
of his own heart.

CHAPTER X

DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE

It is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that
he is a Forsyte; but young Jolyon was well aware of
being one. He had not known it till after the
decisive step which had made him an outcast; since
then the knowledge had been with him continually.
He felt it throughout his alliance, throughout all
his dealings with his second wife, who was emphatically
not a Forsyte.

He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure
the eye for what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on
to it, the sense of the folly of wasting that for
which he had given so big a price—­in other
words, the ’sense of property’ he could
never have retained her (perhaps never would have
desired to retain her) with him through all the financial
troubles, slights, and misconstructions of those fifteen
years; never have induced her to marry him on the
death of his first wife; never have lived it all through,
and come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.

He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like
miniature Chinese idols in the cages of their own
hearts, are ever smiling at themselves a doubting
smile. Not that this smile, so intimate and eternal,
interfered with his actions, which, like his chin
and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of
softness and determination.

He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work,
that painting of water-colours to which he devoted
so much energy, always with an eye on himself, as
though he could not take so unpractical a pursuit quite
seriously, and always with a certain queer uneasiness
that he did not make more money at it.

Page 133

It was, then, this consciousness of what it meant
to be a Forsyte, that made him receive the following
letter from old Jolyon, with a mixture of sympathy
and disgust:

’Sheldrakehouse,
’Broadstairs,

’July 1. ‘MydearJo,’

(The Dad’s handwriting had altered very little
in the thirty odd years that he remembered it.)

’We have been here now a fortnight, and have
had good weather on the whole. The air is bracing,
but my liver is out of order, and I shall be glad
enough to get back to town. I cannot say much
for June, her health and spirits are very indifferent,
and I don’t see what is to come of it.
She says nothing, but it is clear that she is harping
on this engagement, which is an engagement and no
engagement, and—­goodness knows what.
I have grave doubts whether she ought to be allowed
to return to London in the present state of affairs,
but she is so self-willed that she might take it into
her head to come up at any moment. The fact is
someone ought to speak to Bosinney and ascertain what
he means. I’m afraid of this myself, for
I should certainly rap him over the knuckles, but I
thought that you, knowing him at the Club, might put
in a word, and get to ascertain what the fellow is
about. You will of course in no way commit June.
I shall be glad to hear from you in the course of
a few days whether you have succeeded in gaining any
information. The situation is very distressing
to me, I worry about it at night.

Young Jolyon pondered this letter so long and seriously
that his wife noticed his preoccupation, and asked
him what was the matter. He replied: “Nothing.”

It was a fixed principle with him never to allude
to June. She might take alarm, he did not know
what she might think; he hastened, therefore, to banish
from his manner all traces of absorption, but in this
he was about as successful as his father would have
been, for he had inherited all old Jolyon’s
transparency in matters of domestic finesse; and young
Mrs. Jolyon, busying herself over the affairs of the
house, went about with tightened lips, stealing at
him unfathomable looks.

He started for the Club in the afternoon with the
letter in his pocket, and without having made up his
mind.

To sound a man as to ‘his intentions’
was peculiarly unpleasant to him; nor did his own
anomalous position diminish this unpleasantness.
It was so like his family, so like all the people
they knew and mixed with, to enforce what they called
their rights over a man, to bring him up to the mark;
so like them to carry their business principles into
their private relations.

And how that phrase in the letter—­’You
will, of course, in no way commit June’—­gave
the whole thing away.

Yet the letter, with the personal grievance, the concern
for June, the ‘rap over the knuckles,’
was all so natural. No wonder his father wanted
to know what Bosinney meant, no wonder he was angry.

Page 134

It was difficult to refuse! But why give the
thing to him to do? That was surely quite unbecoming;
but so long as a Forsyte got what he was after, he
was not too particular about the means, provided appearances
were saved.

How should he set about it, or how refuse? Both
seemed impossible. So, young Jolyon!

He arrived at the Club at three o’clock, and
the first person he saw was Bosinney himself, seated
in a corner, staring out of the window.

Young Jolyon sat down not far off, and began nervously
to reconsider his position. He looked covertly
at Bosinney sitting there unconscious. He did
not know him very well, and studied him attentively
for perhaps the first time; an unusual looking man,
unlike in dress, face, and manner to most of the other
members of the Club—­young Jolyon himself,
however different he had become in mood and temper,
had always retained the neat reticence of Forsyte
appearance. He alone among Forsytes was ignorant
of Bosinney’s nickname. The man was unusual,
not eccentric, but unusual; he looked worn, too, haggard,
hollow in the cheeks beneath those broad, high cheekbones,
though without any appearance of ill-health, for he
was strongly built, with curly hair that seemed to
show all the vitality of a fine constitution.

Something in his face and attitude touched young Jolyon.
He knew what suffering was like, and this man looked
as if he were suffering.

He got up and touched his arm.

Bosinney started, but exhibited no sign of embarrassment
on seeing who it was.

Young Jolyon sat down.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,”
he said. “How are you getting on with
my cousin’s house?”

“It’ll be finished in about a week.”

“I congratulate you!”

“Thanks—­I don’t know that it’s
much of a subject for congratulation.”

“No?” queried young Jolyon; “I should
have thought you’d be glad to get a long job
like that off your hands; but I suppose you feel it
much as I do when I part with a picture—­a
sort of child?”

He looked kindly at Bosinney.

“Yes,” said the latter more cordially,
“it goes out from you and there’s an end
of it. I didn’t know you painted.”

“Only water-colours; I can’t say I believe
in my work.”

“Don’t believe in it? There—­how
can you do it? Work’s no use unless you
believe in it!”

“Good,” said young Jolyon; “it’s
exactly what I’ve always said. By-the-bye,
have you noticed that whenever one says ‘Good,’
one always adds ‘it’s exactly what I’ve
always said’! But if you ask me how I do
it, I answer, because I’m a Forsyte.”

“A Forsyte! I never thought of you as
one!”

“A Forsyte,” replied young Jolyon, “is
not an uncommon animal. There are hundreds among
the members of this Club. Hundreds out there
in the streets; you meet them wherever you go!”

“And how do you tell them, may I ask?”
said Bosinney.

Page 135

“By their sense of property. A Forsyte
takes a practical—­one might say a commonsense—­view
of things, and a practical view of things is based
fundamentally on a sense of property. A Forsyte,
you will notice, never gives himself away.”

“Joking?”

Young Jolyon’s eye twinkled.

“Not much. As a Forsyte myself, I have
no business to talk. But I’m a kind of
thoroughbred mongrel; now, there’s no mistaking
you: You’re as different from me as I am
from my Uncle James, who is the perfect specimen of
a Forsyte. His sense of property is extreme,
while you have practically none. Without me
in between, you would seem like a different species.
I’m the missing link. We are, of course,
all of us the slaves of property, and I admit that
it’s a question of degree, but what I call a
‘Forsyte’ is a man who is decidedly more
than less a slave of property. He knows a good
thing, he knows a safe thing, and his grip on property—­it
doesn’t matter whether it be wives, houses, money,
or reputation—­is his hall-mark.”

“Ah!” murmured Bosinney. “You
should patent the word.”

“I should like,” said young Jolyon, “to
lecture on it:

“Properties and quality of a Forsyte: This
little animal, disturbed by the ridicule of his own
sort, is unaffected in his motions by the laughter
of strange creatures (you or I). Hereditarily
disposed to myopia, he recognises only the persons
of his own species, amongst which he passes an existence
of competitive tranquillity.”

“You talk of them,” said Bosinney, “as
if they were half England.”

“They are,” repeated young Jolyon, “half
England, and the better half, too, the safe half,
the three per cent. half, the half that counts.
It’s their wealth and security that makes everything
possible; makes your art possible, makes literature,
science, even religion, possible. Without Forsytes,
who believe in none of these things, and habitats but
turn them all to use, where should we be? My
dear sir, the Forsytes are the middlemen, the commercials,
the pillars of society, the cornerstones of convention;
everything that is admirable!”

“I don’t know whether I catch your drift,”
said Bosinney, “but I fancy there are plenty
of Forsytes, as you call them, in my profession.”

“Certainly,” replied young Jolyon.
“The great majority of architects, painters,
or writers have no principles, like any other Forsytes.
Art, literature, religion, survive by virtue of the
few cranks who really believe in such things, and
the many Forsytes who make a commercial use of them.
At a low estimate, three-fourths of our Royal Academicians
are Forsytes, seven-eighths of our novelists, a large
proportion of the press. Of science I can’t
speak; they are magnificently represented in religion;
in the House of Commons perhaps more numerous than
anywhere; the aristocracy speaks for itself.
But I’m not laughing. It is dangerous
to go against the majority and what a majority!”
He fixed his eyes on Bosinney: “It’s
dangerous to let anything carry you away—­a
house, a picture, a—­woman!”

Page 136

They looked at each other.—­And, as though
he had done that which no Forsyte did—­given
himself away, young Jolyon drew into his shell.
Bosinney broke the silence.

“Why do you take your own people as the type?”
said he.

“My people,” replied young Jolyon, “are
not very extreme, and they have their own private
peculiarities, like every other family, but they possess
in a remarkable degree those two qualities which are
the real tests of a Forsyte—­the power of
never being able to give yourself up to anything soul
and body, and the ’sense of property’.”

Bosinney smiled: “How about the big one,
for instance?”

“Do you mean Swithin?” asked young Jolyon.
“Ah! in Swithin there’s something primeval
still. The town and middle-class life haven’t
digested him yet. All the old centuries of farm
work and brute force have settled in him, and there
they’ve stuck, for all he’s so distinguished.”

Bosinney seemed to ponder. “Well, you’ve
hit your cousin Soames off to the life,” he
said suddenly. “He’ll never blow
his brains out.”

Young Jolyon shot at him a penetrating glance.

“No,” he said; “he won’t.
That’s why he’s to be reckoned with.
Look out for their grip! It’s easy to
laugh, but don’t mistake me. It doesn’t
do to despise a Forsyte; it doesn’t do to disregard
them!”

“Yet you’ve done it yourself!”

Young Jolyon acknowledged the hit by losing his smile.

“You forget,” he said with a queer pride,
“I can hold on, too—­I’m a Forsyte
myself. We’re all in the path of great
forces. The man who leaves the shelter of the
wall—­well—­you know what I mean.
I don’t,” he ended very low, as though
uttering a threat, “recommend every man to-go-my-way.
It depends.”

The colour rushed into Bosinney’s face, but
soon receded, leaving it sallow-brown as before.
He gave a short laugh, that left his lips fixed in
a queer, fierce smile; his eyes mocked young Jolyon.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s
deuced kind of you. But you’re not the
only chaps that can hold on.” He rose.

Young Jolyon looked after him as he walked away, and,
resting his head on his hand, sighed.

In the drowsy, almost empty room the only sounds were
the rustle of newspapers, the scraping of matches
being struck. He stayed a long time without
moving, living over again those days when he, too,
had sat long hours watching the clock, waiting for
the minutes to pass—­long hours full of
the torments of uncertainty, and of a fierce, sweet
aching; and the slow, delicious agony of that season
came back to him with its old poignancy. The
sight of Bosinney, with his haggard face, and his
restless eyes always wandering to the clock, had roused
in him a pity, with which was mingled strange, irresistible
envy.

He knew the signs so well. Whither was he going—­to
what sort of fate? What kind of woman was it
who was drawing him to her by that magnetic force
which no consideration of honour, no principle, no
interest could withstand; from which the only escape
was flight.

Page 137

Flight! But why should Bosinney fly? A
man fled when he was in danger of destroying hearth
and home, when there were children, when he felt himself
trampling down ideals, breaking something. But
here, so he had heard, it was all broken to his hand.

He himself had not fled, nor would he fly if it were
all to come over again. Yet he had gone further
than Bosinney, had broken up his own unhappy home,
not someone else’s: And the old saying came
back to him: ’A man’s fate lies in
his own heart.’

In his own heart! The proof of the pudding was
in the eating—­Bosinney had still to eat
his pudding.

His thoughts passed to the woman, the woman whom he
did not know, but the outline of whose story he had
heard.

An unhappy marriage! No ill-treatment—­only
that indefinable malaise, that terrible blight which
killed all sweetness under Heaven; and so from day
to day, from night to night, from week to week, from
year to year, till death should end it.

But young Jolyon, the bitterness of whose own feelings
time had assuaged, saw Soames’ side of the question
too. Whence should a man like his cousin, saturated
with all the prejudices and beliefs of his class, draw
the insight or inspiration necessary to break up this
life? It was a question of imagination, of projecting
himself into the future beyond the unpleasant gossip,
sneers, and tattle that followed on such separations,
beyond the passing pangs that the lack of the sight
of her would cause, beyond the grave disapproval of
the worthy. But few men, and especially few
men of Soames’ class, had imagination enough
for that. A deal of mortals in this world, and
not enough imagination to go round! And sweet
Heaven, what a difference between theory and practice;
many a man, perhaps even Soames, held chivalrous views
on such matters, who when the shoe pinched found a
distinguishing factor that made of himself an exception.

Then, too, he distrusted his judgment. He had
been through the experience himself, had tasted too
the dregs the bitterness of an unhappy marriage, and
how could he take the wide and dispassionate view of
those who had never been within sound of the battle?
His evidence was too first-hand—­like the
evidence on military matters of a soldier who has
been through much active service, against that of civilians
who have not suffered the disadvantage of seeing things
too close. Most people would consider such a
marriage as that of Soames and Irene quite fairly
successful; he had money, she had beauty; it was a
case for compromise. There was no reason why
they should not jog along, even if they hated each
other. It would not matter if they went their
own ways a little so long as the decencies were observed—­the
sanctity of the marriage tie, of the common home,
respected. Half the marriages of the upper classes
were conducted on these lines: Do not offend
the susceptibilities of Society; do not offend the
susceptibilities of the Church. To avoid offending
these is worth the sacrifice of any private feelings.
The advantages of the stable home are visible, tangible,
so many pieces of property; there is no risk in the
statu quo. To break up a home is at the best
a dangerous experiment, and selfish into the bargain.

Page 138

This was the case for the defence, and young Jolyon
sighed.

‘The core of it all,’ he thought, ’is
property, but there are many people who would not
like it put that way. To them it is “the
sanctity of the marriage tie”; but the sanctity
of the marriage tie is dependent on the sanctity of
the family, and the sanctity of the family is dependent
on the sanctity of property. And yet I imagine
all these people are followers of One who never owned
anything. It is curious!

And again young Jolyon sighed.

’Am I going on my way home to ask any poor devils
I meet to share my dinner, which will then be too
little for myself, or, at all events, for my wife,
who is necessary to my health and happiness? It
may be that after all Soames does well to exercise
his rights and support by his practice the sacred
principle of property which benefits us all, with the
exception of those who suffer by the process.’

And so he left his chair, threaded his way through
the maze of seats, took his hat, and languidly up
the hot streets crowded with carriages, reeking with
dusty odours, wended his way home.

Before reaching Wistaria Avenue he removed old Jolyon’s
letter from his pocket, and tearing it carefully into
tiny pieces, scattered them in the dust of the road.

He let himself in with his key, and called his wife’s
name. But she had gone out, taking Jolly and
Holly, and the house was empty; alone in the garden
the dog Balthasar lay in the shade snapping at flies.

Young Jolyon took his seat there, too, under the pear-tree
that bore no fruit.

CHAPTER XI

BOSINNEY ON PAROLE

The day after the evening at Richmond Soames returned
from Henley by a morning train. Not constitutionally
interested in amphibious sports, his visit had been
one of business rather than pleasure, a client of some
importance having asked him down.

He went straight to the City, but finding things slack,
he left at three o’clock, glad of this chance
to get home quietly. Irene did not expect him.
Not that he had any desire to spy on her actions,
but there was no harm in thus unexpectedly surveying
the scene.

After changing to Park clothes he went into the drawing-room.
She was sitting idly in the corner of the sofa, her
favourite seat; and there were circles under her eyes,
as though she had not slept.

He asked: “How is it you’re in?
Are you expecting somebody?”

“Yes that is, not particularly.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Bosinney said he might come.”

“Bosinney. He ought to be at work.”

To this she made no answer.

“Well,” said Soames, “I want you
to come out to the Stores with me, and after that
we’ll go to the Park.”

“I don’t want to go out; I have a headache.”

Soames replied: “If ever I want you to
do anything, you’ve always got a headache.
It’ll do you good to come and sit under the
trees.”

Page 139

She did not answer.

Soames was silent for some minutes; at last he said:
“I don’t know what your idea of a wife’s
duty is. I never have known!”

He had not expected her to reply, but she did.

“I have tried to do what you want; it’s
not my fault that I haven’t been able to put
my heart into it.”

“Whose fault is it, then?” He watched
her askance.

“Before we were married you promised to let
me go if our marriage was not a success. Is
it a success?”

Soames frowned.

“Success,” he stammered—­“it
would be a success if you behaved yourself properly!”

“I have tried,” said Irene. “Will
you let me go?”

Soames turned away. Secretly alarmed, he took
refuge in bluster.

“Let you go? You don’t know what
you’re talking about. Let you go?
How can I let you go? We’re married,
aren’t we? Then, what are you talking
about? For God’s sake, don’t let’s
have any of this sort of nonsense! Get your hat
on, and come and sit in the Park.”

“Then, you won’t let me go?”

He felt her eyes resting on him with a strange, touching
look.

“Let you go!” he said; “and what
on earth would you do with yourself if I did?
You’ve got no money!”

“I could manage somehow.”

He took a swift turn up and down the room; then came
and stood before her.

“Understand,” he said, “once and
for all, I won’t have you say this sort of thing.
Go and get your hat on!”

She did not move.

“I suppose,” said Soames, “you don’t
want to miss Bosinney if he comes!”

Irene got up slowly and left the room. She came
down with her hat on.

They went out.

In the Park, the motley hour of mid-afternoon, when
foreigners and other pathetic folk drive, thinking
themselves to be in fashion, had passed; the right,
the proper, hour had come, was nearly gone, before
Soames and Irene seated themselves under the Achilles
statue.

It was some time since he had enjoyed her company
in the Park. That was one of the past delights
of the first two seasons of his married life, when
to feel himself the possessor of this gracious creature
before all London had been his greatest, though secret,
pride. How many afternoons had he not sat beside
her, extremely neat, with light grey gloves and faint,
supercilious smile, nodding to acquaintances, and now
and again removing his hat.

His light grey gloves were still on his hands, and
on his lips his smile sardonic, but where the feeling
in his heart?

The seats were emptying fast, but still he kept her
there, silent and pale, as though to work out a secret
punishment. Once or twice he made some comment,
and she bent her head, or answered “Yes”
with a tired smile.

Along the rails a man was walking so fast that people
stared after him when he passed.

“Look at that ass!” said Soames; “he
must be mad to walk like that in this heat!”

Page 140

He turned; Irene had made a rapid movement.

“Hallo!” he said: “it’s
our friend the Buccaneer!”

And he sat still, with his sneering smile, conscious
that Irene was sitting still, and smiling too.

“Will she bow to him?” he thought.

But she made no sign.

Bosinney reached the end of the rails, and came walking
back amongst the chairs, quartering his ground like
a pointer. When he saw them he stopped dead,
and raised his hat.

The smile never left Soames’ face; he also took
off his hat.

Bosinney came up, looking exhausted, like a man after
hard physical exercise; the sweat stood in drops on
his brow, and Soames’ smile seemed to say:
“You’ve had a trying time, my friend ......What
are you doing in the Park?” he asked.
“We thought you despised such frivolity!”

Bosinney did not seem to hear; he made his answer
to Irene: “I’ve been round to your
place; I hoped I should find you in.”

Somebody tapped Soames on the back, and spoke to him;
and in the exchange of those platitudes over his shoulder,
he missed her answer, and took a resolution.

“We’re just going in,” he said to
Bosinney; “you’d better come back to dinner
with us.” Into that invitation he put a
strange bravado, a stranger pathos: “You,
can’t deceive me,” his look and voice seemed
saying, “but see—­I trust you—­I’m
not afraid of you!”

They started back to Montpellier Square together,
Irene between them. In the crowded streets Soames
went on in front. He did not listen to their
conversation; the strange resolution of trustfulness
he had taken seemed to animate even his secret conduct.
Like a gambler, he said to himself: ’It’s
a card I dare not throw away—­I must play
it for what it’s worth. I have not too
many chances.’

He dressed slowly, heard her leave her room and go
downstairs, and, for full five minutes after, dawdled
about in his dressing-room. Then he went down,
purposely shutting the door loudly to show that he
was coming. He found them standing by the hearth,
perhaps talking, perhaps not; he could not say.

He played his part out in the farce, the long evening
through—­his manner to his guest more friendly
than it had ever been before; and when at last Bosinney
went, he said: “You must come again soon;
Irene likes to have you to talk about the house!”
Again his voice had the strange bravado and the stranger
pathos; but his hand was cold as ice.

Loyal to his resolution, he turned away from their
parting, turned away from his wife as she stood under
the hanging lamp to say good-night—­away
from the sight of her golden head shining so under
the light, of her smiling mournful lips; away from
the sight of Bosinney’s eyes looking at her,
so like a dog’s looking at its master.

And he went to bed with the certainty that Bosinney
was in love with his wife.

The summer night was hot, so hot and still that through
every opened window came in but hotter air.
For long hours he lay listening to her breathing.

Page 141

She could sleep, but he must lie awake. And,
lying awake, he hardened himself to play the part
of the serene and trusting husband.

In the small hours he slipped out of bed, and passing
into his dressing-room, leaned by the open window.

He could hardly breathe.

A night four years ago came back to him—­the
night but one before his marriage; as hot and stifling
as this.

He remembered how he had lain in a long cane chair
in the window of his sitting-room off Victoria Street.
Down below in a side street a man had banged at a
door, a woman had cried out; he remembered, as though
it were now, the sound of the scuffle, the slam of
the door, the dead silence that followed. And
then the early water-cart, cleansing the reek of the
streets, had approached through the strange-seeming,
useless lamp-light; he seemed to hear again its rumble,
nearer and nearer, till it passed and slowly died
away.

He leaned far out of the dressing-room window over
the little court below, and saw the first light spread.
The outlines of dark walls and roofs were blurred
for a moment, then came out sharper than before.

He remembered how that other night he had watched
the lamps paling all the length of Victoria Street;
how he had hurried on his clothes and gone down into
the street, down past houses and squares, to the street
where she was staying, and there had stood and looked
at the front of the little house, as still and grey
as the face of a dead man.

And suddenly it shot through his mind; like a sick
man’s fancy: What’s he doing?—­that
fellow who haunts me, who was here this evening, who’s
in love with my wife—­prowling out there,
perhaps, looking for her as I know he was looking
for her this afternoon; watching my house now, for
all I can tell!

He stole across the landing to the front of the house,
stealthily drew aside a blind, and raised a window.

The grey light clung about the trees of the square,
as though Night, like a great downy moth, had brushed
them with her wings. The lamps were still alight,
all pale, but not a soul stirred—­no living
thing in sight.

Yet suddenly, very faint, far off in the deathly stillness,
he heard a cry writhing, like the voice of some wandering
soul barred out of heaven, and crying for its happiness.
There it was again—­again! Soames
shut the window, shuddering.

Then he thought: ‘Ah! it’s only the
peacocks, across the water.’

CHAPTER XII

JUNE PAYS SOME CALLS

Jolyon stood in the narrow hall at Broadstairs, inhaling
that odour of oilcloth and herrings which permeates
all respectable seaside lodging-houses. On a
chair—­a shiny leather chair, displaying
its horsehair through a hole in the top left-hand
corner—­stood a black despatch case.
This he was filling with papers, with the Times, and
a bottle of Eau-de Cologne. He had meetings
that day of the ’Globular Gold Concessions’
and the ‘New Colliery Company, Limited,’
to which he was going up, for he never missed a Board;
to ‘miss a Board’ would be one more piece
of evidence that he was growing old, and this his jealous
Forsyte spirit could not bear.

Page 142

His eyes, as he filled that black despatch case, looked
as if at any moment they might blaze up with anger.
So gleams the eye of a schoolboy, baited by a ring
of his companions; but he controls himself, deterred
by the fearful odds against him. And old Jolyon
controlled himself, keeping down, with his masterful
restraint now slowly wearing out, the irritation fostered
in him by the conditions of his life.

He had received from his son an unpractical letter,
in which by rambling generalities the boy seemed trying
to get out of answering a plain question. ‘I’ve
seen Bosinney,’ he said; ’he is not a criminal.
The more I see of people the more I am convinced
that they are never good or bad—­merely
comic, or pathetic. You probably don’t
agree with me!’

Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so
express oneself; he had not yet reached that point
of old age when even Forsytes, bereft of those illusions
and principles which they have cherished carefully
for practical purposes but never believed in, bereft
of all corporeal enjoyment, stricken to the very heart
by having nothing left to hope for—­break
through the barriers of reserve and say things they
would never have believed themselves capable of saying.

Perhaps he did not believe in ‘goodness’
and ‘badness’ any more than his son; but
as he would have said: He didn’t know—­couldn’t
tell; there might be something in it; and why, by
an unnecessary expression of disbelief, deprive yourself
of possible advantage?

Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains,
though (like a true Forsyte) he had never attempted
anything too adventurous or too foolhardy, he had
been passionately fond of them. And when the
wonderful view (mentioned in Baedeker—­’fatiguing
but repaying’)—­was disclosed to him
after the effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt
the existence of some great, dignified principle crowning
the chaotic strivings, the petty precipices, and ironic
little dark chasms of life. This was as near
to religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had
ever gone.

But it was many years since he had been to the mountains.
He had taken June there two seasons running, after
his wife died, and had realized bitterly that his
walking days were over.

To that old mountain—­given confidence in
a supreme order of things he had long been a stranger.

He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and
this troubled him. It troubled and puzzled him,
too, to think that he, who had always been so careful,
should be father and grandfather to such as seemed
born to disaster. He had nothing to say against
Jo—­who could say anything against the boy,
an amiable chap?—­but his position was deplorable,
and this business of June’s nearly as bad.
It seemed like a fatality, and a fatality was one
of those things no man of his character could either
understand or put up with.

In writing to his son he did not really hope that
anything would come of it. Since the ball at
Roger’s he had seen too clearly how the land
lay—­he could put two and two together quicker
than most men—­and, with the example of
his own son before his eyes, knew better than any Forsyte
of them all that the pale flame singes men’s
wings whether they will or no.

Page 143

In the days before June’s engagement, when she
and Mrs. Soames were always together, he had seen
enough of Irene to feel the spell she cast over men.
She was not a flirt, not even a coquette—­words
dear to the heart of his generation, which loved to
define things by a good, broad, inadequate word—­but
she was dangerous. He could not say why.
Tell him of a quality innate in some women—­a
seductive power beyond their own control! He
would but answer: ‘Humbug!’ She was
dangerous, and there was an end of it. He wanted
to close his eyes to that affair. If it was,
it was; he did not want to hear any more about it—­he
only wanted to save June’s position and her
peace of mind. He still hoped she might once
more become a comfort to himself.

And so he had written. He got little enough
out of the answer. As to what young Jolyon had
made of the interview, there was practically only
the queer sentence: ‘I gather that he’s
in the stream.’ The stream! What
stream? What was this new-fangled way of talking?

He sighed, and folded the last of the papers under
the flap of the bag; he knew well enough what was
meant.

June came out of the dining-room, and helped him on
with his summer coat. From her costume, and the
expression of her little resolute face, he saw at
once what was coming.

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“Nonsense, my dear; I go straight into the City.
I can’t have you racketting about!”

“I must see old Mrs. Smeech.”

“Oh, your precious ’lame ducks!”
grumbled out old Jolyon. He did not believe
her excuse, but ceased his opposition. There
was no doing anything with that pertinacity of hers.

At Victoria he put her into the carriage which had
been ordered for himself—­a characteristic
action, for he had no petty selfishnesses.

“Now, don’t you go tiring yourself, my
darling,” he said, and took a cab on into the
city.

June went first to a back-street in Paddington, where
Mrs. Smeech, her ‘lame duck,’ lived—­an
aged person, connected with the charring interest;
but after half an hour spent in hearing her habitually
lamentable recital, and dragooning her into temporary
comfort, she went on to Stanhope Gate. The great
house was closed and dark.

She had decided to learn something at all costs.
It was better to face the worst, and have it over.
And this was her plan: To go first to Phil’s
aunt, Mrs. Baynes, and, failing information there,
to Irene herself. She had no clear notion of
what she would gain by these visits.

At three o’clock she was in Lowndes Square.
With a woman’s instinct when trouble is to
be faced, she had put on her best frock, and went to
the battle with a glance as courageous as old Jolyon’s
itself. Her tremors had passed into eagerness.

Mrs. Baynes, Bosinney’s aunt (Louisa was her
name), was in her kitchen when June was announced,
organizing the cook, for she was an excellent housewife,
and, as Baynes always said, there was ’a lot
in a good dinner.’ He did his best work
after dinner. It was Baynes who built that remarkably
fine row of tall crimson houses in Kensington which
compete with so many others for the title of ‘the
ugliest in London.’

Page 144

On hearing June’s name, she went hurriedly to
her bedroom, and, taking two large bracelets from
a red morocco case in a locked drawer, put them on
her white wrists—­for she possessed in a
remarkable degree that ’sense of property,’
which, as we know, is the touchstone of Forsyteism,
and the foundation of good morality.

Her figure, of medium height and broad build, with
a tendency to embonpoint, was reflected by the mirror
of her whitewood wardrobe, in a gown made under her
own organization, of one of those half-tints, reminiscent
of the distempered walls of corridors in large hotels.
She raised her hands to her hair, which she wore
a la Princesse de Galles, and touched it here and
there, settling it more firmly on her head, and her
eyes were full of an unconscious realism, as though
she were looking in the face one of life’s sordid
facts, and making the best of it. In youth her
cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were mottled
now by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness
came into her eyes as she dabbed a powder-puff across
her forehead. Putting the puff down, she stood
quite still before the glass, arranging a smile over
her high, important nose, her, chin, (never large,
and now growing smaller with the increase of her neck),
her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth. Quickly,
not to lose the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly
in both hands, and went downstairs.

She had been hoping for this visit for some time past.
Whispers had reached her that things were not all
right between her nephew and his fiancee. Neither
of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked
Phil to dinner many times; his invariable answer had
been ‘Too busy.’

Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such
matters of this excellent woman was keen. She
ought to have been a Forsyte; in young Jolyon’s
sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege,
and merits description as such.

She had married off her three daughters in a way that
people said was beyond their deserts, for they had
the professional plainness only to be found, as a
rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings.
Her name was upon the committees of numberless charities
connected with the Church-dances, theatricals, or
bazaars—­and she never lent her name unless
sure beforehand that everything had been thoroughly
organized.

She believed, as she often said, in putting things
on a commercial basis; the proper function of the
Church, of charity, indeed, of everything, was to
strengthen the fabric of ‘Society.’
Individual action, therefore, she considered immoral.
Organization was the only thing, for by organization
alone could you feel sure that you were getting a return
for your money. Organization—­and again,
organization! And there is no doubt that she
was what old Jolyon called her—­“a
‘dab’ at that”—­he went
further, he called her “a humbug.”

The enterprises to which she lent her name were organized
so admirably that by the time the takings were handed
over, they were indeed skim milk divested of all cream
of human kindness. But as she often justly remarked,
sentiment was to be deprecated. She was, in fact,
a little academic.

Page 145

This great and good woman, so highly thought of in
ecclesiastical circles, was one of the principal priestesses
in the temple of Forsyteism, keeping alive day and
night a sacred flame to the God of Property, whose
altar is inscribed with those inspiring words:
’Nothing for nothing, and really remarkably
little for sixpence.’

When she entered a room it was felt that something
substantial had come in, which was probably the reason
of her popularity as a patroness. People liked
something substantial when they had paid money for
it; and they would look at her—­surrounded
by her staff in charity ballrooms, with her high nose
and her broad, square figure, attired in an uniform
covered with sequins—­as though she were
a general.

The only thing against her was that she had not a
double name. She was a power in upper middle-class
society, with its hundred sets and circles, all intersecting
on the common battlefield of charity functions, and
on that battlefield brushing skirts so pleasantly
with the skirts of Society with the capital ‘S.’
She was a power in society with the smaller ‘s,’
that larger, more significant, and more powerful body,
where the commercially Christian institutions, maxims,
and ‘principle,’ which Mrs. Baynes embodied,
were real life-blood, circulating freely, real business
currency, not merely the sterilized imitation that
flowed in the veins of smaller Society with the larger
‘S.’ People who knew her felt her
to be sound—­a sound woman, who never gave
herself away, nor anything else, if she could possibly
help it.

She had been on the worst sort of terms with Bosinney’s
father, who had not infrequently made her the object
of an unpardonable ridicule. She alluded to
him now that he was gone as her ’poor, dear,
irreverend brother.’

She greeted June with the careful effusion of which
she was a mistress, a little afraid of her as far
as a woman of her eminence in the commercial and Christian
world could be afraid—­for so slight a girl
June had a great dignity, the fearlessness of her
eyes gave her that. And Mrs. Baynes, too, shrewdly
recognized that behind the uncompromising frankness
of June’s manner there was much of the Forsyte.
If the girl had been merely frank and courageous,
Mrs. Baynes would have thought her ‘cranky,’
and despised her; if she had been merely a Forsyte,
like Francie—­let us say—­she
would have patronized her from sheer weight of metal;
but June, small though she was—­Mrs. Baynes
habitually admired quantity—­gave her an
uneasy feeling; and she placed her in a chair opposite
the light.

There was another reason for her respect which Mrs.
Baynes, too good a churchwoman to be worldly, would
have been the last to admit—­she often heard
her husband describe old Jolyon as extremely well off,
and was biassed towards his granddaughter for the
soundest of all reasons. To-day she felt the
emotion with which we read a novel describing a hero
and an inheritance, nervously anxious lest, by some
frightful lapse of the novelist, the young man should
be left without it at the end.

Page 146

Her manner was warm; she had never seen so clearly
before how distinguished and desirable a girl this
was. She asked after old Jolyon’s health.
A wonderful man for his age; so upright, and young
looking, and how old was he? Eighty-one!
She would never have thought it! They were
at the sea! Very nice for them; she supposed
June heard from Phil every day? Her light grey
eyes became more prominent as she asked this question;
but the girl met the glance without flinching.

“No,” she said, “he never writes!”

Mrs. Baynes’s eyes dropped; they had no intention
of doing so, but they did. They recovered immediately.

“Of course not. That’s Phil all
over—­he was always like that!”

“Was he?” said June.

The brevity of the answer caused Mrs. Baynes’s
bright smile a moment’s hesitation; she disguised
it by a quick movement, and spreading her skirts afresh,
said: “Why, my dear—­he’s
quite the most harum-scarum person; one never pays
the slightest attention to what he does!”

The conviction came suddenly to June that she was
wasting her time; even were she to put a question
point-blank, she would never get anything out of this
woman.

‘Do you see him?’ she asked, her face
crimsoning.

The perspiration broke out on Mrs. Baynes’ forehead
beneath the powder.

“Oh, yes! I don’t remember when
he was here last—­indeed, we haven’t
seen much of him lately. He’s so busy with
your cousin’s house; I’m told it’ll
be finished directly. We must organize a little
dinner to celebrate the event; do come and stay the
night with us!”

“Thank you,” said June. Again she
thought: ’I’m only wasting my time.
This woman will tell me nothing.’

She got up to go. A change came over Mrs. Baynes.
She rose too; her lips twitched, she fidgeted her
hands. Something was evidently very wrong, and
she did not dare to ask this girl, who stood there,
a slim, straight little figure, with her decided face,
her set jaw, and resentful eyes. She was not
accustomed to be afraid of asking question’s—­all
organization was based on the asking of questions!

But the issue was so grave that her nerve, normally
strong, was fairly shaken; only that morning her husband
had said: “Old Mr. Forsyte must be worth
well over a hundred thousand pounds!”

And this girl stood there, holding out her hand—­holding
out her hand!

The chance might be slipping away—­she couldn’t
tell—­the chance of keeping her in the family,
and yet she dared not speak.

Her eyes followed June to the door.

It closed.

Then with an exclamation Mrs. Baynes ran forward,
wobbling her bulky frame from side to side, and opened
it again.

Too late! She heard the front door click, and
stood still, an expression of real anger and mortification
on her face.

June went along the Square with her bird-like quickness.
She detested that woman now whom in happier days
she had been accustomed to think so kind. Was
she always to be put off thus, and forced to undergo
this torturing suspense?

Page 147

She would go to Phil himself, and ask him what he
meant. She had the right to know. She
hurried on down Sloane Street till she came to Bosinney’s
number. Passing the swing-door at the bottom,
she ran up the stairs, her heart thumping painfully.

At the top of the third flight she paused for breath,
and holding on to the bannisters, stood listening.
No sound came from above.

With a very white face she mounted the last flight.
She saw the door, with his name on the plate.
And the resolution that had brought her so far evaporated.

The full meaning of her conduct came to her.
She felt hot all over; the palms of her hands were
moist beneath the thin silk covering of her gloves.

She drew back to the stairs, but did not descend.
Leaning against the rail she tried to get rid of
a feeling of being choked; and she gazed at the door
with a sort of dreadful courage. No! she refused
to go down. Did it matter what people thought
of her? They would never know! No one
would help her if she did not help herself! She
would go through with it.

Forcing herself, therefore, to leave the support of
the wall, she rang the bell. The door did not
open, and all her shame and fear suddenly abandoned
her; she rang again and again, as though in spite of
its emptiness she could drag some response out of
that closed room, some recompense for the shame and
fear that visit had cost her. It did not open;
she left off ringing, and, sitting down at the top
of the stairs, buried her face in her hands.

Presently she stole down, out into the air.
She felt as though she had passed through a bad illness,
and had no desire now but to get home as quickly as
she could. The people she met seemed to know
where she had been, what she had been doing; and suddenly—­over
on the opposite side, going towards his rooms from
the direction of Montpellier Square—­she
saw Bosinney himself.

She made a movement to cross into the traffic.
Their eyes met, and he raised his hat. An omnibus
passed, obscuring her view; then, from the edge of
the pavement, through a gap in the traffic, she saw
him walking on.

And June stood motionless, looking after him.

CHAPTER XIII

PERFECTION OF THE HOUSE

‘One mockturtle, clear; one oxtail; two glasses
of port.’

In the upper room at French’s, where a Forsyte
could still get heavy English food, James and his
son were sitting down to lunch.

Of all eating-places James liked best to come here;
there was something unpretentious, well-flavoured,
and filling about it, and though he had been to a
certain extent corrupted by the necessity for being
fashionable, and the trend of habits keeping pace with
an income that would increase, he still hankered in
quiet City moments after the tasty fleshpots of his
earlier days. Here you were served by hairy English
waiters in aprons; there was sawdust on the floor,
and three round gilt looking-glasses hung just above
the line of sight. They had only recently done
away with the cubicles, too, in which you could have
your chop, prime chump, with a floury-potato, without
seeing your neighbours, like a gentleman.

Page 148

He tucked the top corner of his napkin behind the
third button of his waistcoat, a practice he had been
obliged to abandon years ago in the West End.
He felt that he should relish his soup—­the
entire morning had been given to winding up the estate
of an old friend.

After filling his mouth with household bread, stale,
he at once began: “How are you going down
to Robin Hill? You going to take Irene?
You’d better take her. I should think
there’ll be a lot that’ll want seeing
to.”

Without looking up, Soames answered: “She
won’t go.”

“Won’t go? What’s the meaning
of that? She’s going to live in the house,
isn’t she?”

Soames made no reply.

“I don’t know what’s coming to women
nowadays,” mumbled James; “I never used
to have any trouble with them. She’s had
too much liberty. She’s spoiled....”

Soames lifted his eyes: “I won’t
have anything said against her,” he said unexpectedly.

The silence was only broken now by the supping of
James’s soup.

The waiter brought the two glasses of port, but Soames
stopped him.

“That’s not the way to serve port,”
he said; “take them away, and bring the bottle.”

Rousing himself from his reverie over the soup, James
took one of his rapid shifting surveys of surrounding
facts.

“Your mother’s in bed,” he said;
“you can have the carriage to take you down.
I should think Irene’d like the drive.
This young Bosinney’ll be there, I suppose,
to show you over”

Soames nodded.

“I should like to go and see for myself what
sort of a job he’s made finishing off,”
pursued James. “I’ll just drive round
and pick you both up.”

“I am going down by train,” replied Soames.
“If you like to drive round and see, Irene
might go with you, I can’t tell.”

He signed to the waiter to bring the bill, which James
paid.

They parted at St. Paul’s, Soames branching
off to the station, James taking his omnibus westwards.

He had secured the corner seat next the conductor,
where his long legs made it difficult for anyone to
get in, and at all who passed him he looked resentfully,
as if they had no business to be using up his air.

He intended to take an opportunity this afternoon
of speaking to Irene. A word in time saved nine;
and now that she was going to live in the country
there was a chance for her to turn over a new leaf!
He could see that Soames wouldn’t stand very
much more of her goings on!

It did not occur to him to define what he meant by
her ‘goings on’; the expression was wide,
vague, and suited to a Forsyte. And James had
more than his common share of courage after lunch.

On reaching home, he ordered out the barouche, with
special instructions that the groom was to go too.
He wished to be kind to her, and to give her every
chance.

When the door of No.62 was opened he could distinctly
hear her singing, and said so at once, to prevent
any chance of being denied entrance.

Page 149

Yes, Mrs. Soames was in, but the maid did not know
if she was seeing people.

James, moving with the rapidity that ever astonished
the observers of his long figure and absorbed expression,
went forthwith into the drawing-room without permitting
this to be ascertained. He found Irene seated
at the piano with her hands arrested on the keys,
evidently listening to the voices in the hall.
She greeted him without smiling.

“Your mother-in-law’s in bed,” he
began, hoping at once to enlist her sympathy.
“I’ve got the carriage here. Now,
be a good girl, and put on your hat and come with
me for a drive. It’ll do you good!”

Irene looked at him as though about to refuse, but,
seeming to change her mind, went upstairs, and came
down again with her hat on.

“Where are you going to take me?” she
asked.

“We’ll just go down to Robin Hill,”
said James, spluttering out his words very quick;
“the horses want exercise, and I should like
to see what they’ve been doing down there.”

Irene hung back, but again changed her mind, and went
out to the carriage, James brooding over her closely,
to make quite sure.

It was not before he had got her more than half way
that he began: “Soames is very fond of
you—­he won’t have anything said against
you; why don’t you show him more affection?”

Irene flushed, and said in a low voice: “I
can’t show what I haven’t got.”

James looked at her sharply; he felt that now he had
her in his own carriage, with his own horses and servants,
he was really in command of the situation. She
could not put him off; nor would she make a scene in
public.

“I can’t think what you’re about,”
he said. “He’s a very good husband!”

Irene’s answer was so low as to be almost inaudible
among the sounds of traffic. He caught the words:
“You are not married to him!”

“What’s that got to do with it?
He’s given you everything you want. He’s
always ready to take you anywhere, and now he’s
built you this house in the country. It’s
not as if you had anything of your own.”

“No.”

Again James looked at her; he could not make out the
expression on her face. She looked almost as
if she were going to cry, and yet....

“I’m sure,” he muttered hastily,
“we’ve all tried to be kind to you.”

Irene’s lips quivered; to his dismay James saw
a tear steal down her cheek. He felt a choke
rise in his own throat.

“We’re all fond of you,” he said,
“if you’d only”—­he was
going to say, “behave yourself,” but changed
it to—­“if you’d only be more
of a wife to him.”

Irene did not answer, and James, too, ceased speaking.
There was something in her silence which disconcerted
him; it was not the silence of obstinacy, rather that
of acquiescence in all that he could find to say.
And yet he felt as if he had not had the last word.
He could not understand this.

Page 150

He was unable, however, to long keep silence.

“I suppose that young Bosinney,” he said,
“will be getting married to June now?”

Irene’s face changed. “I don’t
know,” she said; “you should ask her.”

“Does she write to you?” No.

“How’s that?” said James.
“I thought you and she were such great friends.”

Irene turned on him. “Again,” she
said, “you should ask her!”

“Well,” flustered James, frightened by
her look, “it’s very odd that I can’t
get a plain answer to a plain question, but there it
is.”

He sat ruminating over his rebuff, and burst out at
last:

“Well, I’ve warned you. You won’t
look ahead. Soames he doesn’t say much,
but I can see he won’t stand a great deal more
of this sort of thing. You’ll have nobody
but yourself to blame, and, what’s more, you’ll
get no sympathy from anybody.”

Irene bent her head with a little smiling bow.
“I am very much obliged to you.”

James did not know what on earth to answer.

The bright hot morning had changed slowly to a grey,
oppressive afternoon; a heavy bank of clouds, with
the yellow tinge of coming thunder, had risen in the
south, and was creeping up.

The branches of the trees dropped motionless across
the road without the smallest stir of foliage.
A faint odour of glue from the heated horses clung
in the thick air; the coachman and groom, rigid and
unbending, exchanged stealthy murmurs on the box,
without ever turning their heads.

To James’ great relief they reached the house
at last; the silence and impenetrability of this woman
by his side, whom he had always thought so soft and
mild, alarmed him.

The carriage put them down at the door, and they entered.

The hall was cool, and so still that it was like passing
into a tomb; a shudder ran down James’s spine.
He quickly lifted the heavy leather curtains between
the columns into the inner court.

He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.

The decoration was really in excellent taste.
The dull ruby tiles that extended from the foot of
the walls to the verge of a circular clump of tall
iris plants, surrounding in turn a sunken basin of
white marble filled with water, were obviously of
the best quality. He admired extremely the purple
leather curtains drawn along one entire side, framing
a huge white-tiled stove. The central partitions
of the skylight had been slid back, and the warm air
from outside penetrated into the very heart of the
house.

He stood, his hands behind him, his head bent back
on his high, narrow shoulders, spying the tracery
on the columns and the pattern of the frieze which
ran round the ivory-coloured walls under the gallery.
Evidently, no pains had been spared. It was quite
the house of a gentleman. He went up to the
curtains, and, having discovered how they were worked,
drew them asunder and disclosed the picture-gallery,
ending in a great window taking up the whole end of
the room. It had a black oak floor, and its
walls, again, were of ivory white. He went on
throwing open doors, and peeping in. Everything
was in apple-pie order, ready for immediate occupation.

Page 151

He turned round at last to speak to Irene, and saw
her standing over in the garden entrance, with her
husband and Bosinney.

Though not remarkable for sensibility, James felt
at once that something was wrong. He went up
to them, and, vaguely alarmed, ignorant of the nature
of the trouble, made an attempt to smooth things over.

“How are you, Mr. Bosinney?” he said,
holding out his hand. “You’ve been
spending money pretty freely down here, I should say!”

Soames turned his back, and walked away.

James looked from Bosinney’s frowning face to
Irene, and, in his agitation, spoke his thoughts aloud:
“Well, I can’t tell what’s the matter.
Nobody tells me anything!” And, making off
after his son, he heard Bosinney’s short laugh,
and his “Well, thank God! You look so....”
Most unfortunately he lost the rest.

What had happened? He glanced back. Irene
was very close to the architect, and her face not
like the face he knew of her. He hastened up
to his son.

Soames was pacing the picture-gallery.

“What’s the matter?” said James.
“What’s all this?”

Soames looked at him with his supercilious calm unbroken,
but James knew well enough that he was violently angry.

“Our friend,” he said, “has exceeded
his instructions again, that’s all. So
much the worse for him this time.”

He turned round and walked back towards the door.
James followed hurriedly, edging himself in front.
He saw Irene take her finger from before her lips,
heard her say something in her ordinary voice, and
began to speak before he reached them.

“There’s a storm coming on. We’d
better get home. We can’t take you, I
suppose, Mr. Bosinney? No, I suppose not.
Then, good-bye!” He held out his hand.
Bosinney did not take it, but, turning with a laugh,
said:

“Good-bye, Mr. Forsyte. Don’t get
caught in the storm!” and walked away.

“Well,” began James, “I don’t
know....”

But the ’sight of Irene’s face stopped
him. Taking hold of his daughter-in-law by the
elbow, he escorted her towards the carriage.
He felt certain, quite certain, they had been making
some appointment or other....

Nothing in this world is more sure to upset a Forsyte
than the discovery that something on which he has
stipulated to spend a certain sum has cost more.
And this is reasonable, for upon the accuracy of his
estimates the whole policy of his life is ordered.
If he cannot rely on definite values of property,
his compass is amiss; he is adrift upon bitter waters
without a helm.

Page 152

After writing to Bosinney in the terms that have already
been chronicled, Soames had dismissed the cost of
the house from his mind. He believed that he
had made the matter of the final cost so very plain
that the possibility of its being again exceeded had
really never entered his head. On hearing from
Bosinney that his limit of twelve thousand pounds
would be exceeded by something like four hundred, he
had grown white with anger. His original estimate
of the cost of the house completed had been ten thousand
pounds, and he had often blamed himself severely for
allowing himself to be led into repeated excesses.
Over this last expenditure, however, Bosinney had
put himself completely in the wrong. How on earth
a fellow could make such an ass of himself Soames could
not conceive; but he had done so, and all the rancour
and hidden jealousy that had been burning against
him for so long was now focussed in rage at this crowning
piece of extravagance. The attitude of the confident
and friendly husband was gone. To preserve property—­his
wife—­he had assumed it, to preserve property
of another kind he lost it now.

“Ah!” he had said to Bosinney when he
could speak, “and I suppose you’re perfectly
contented with yourself. But I may as well tell
you that you’ve altogether mistaken your man!”

What he meant by those words he did not quite know
at the time, but after dinner he looked up the correspondence
between himself and Bosinney to make quite sure.
There could be no two opinions about it—­the
fellow had made himself liable for that extra four
hundred, or, at all events, for three hundred and
fifty of it, and he would have to make it good.

He was looking at his wife’s face when he came
to this conclusion. Seated in her usual seat
on the sofa, she was altering the lace on a collar.
She had not once spoken to him all the evening.

He went up to the mantelpiece, and contemplating his
face in the mirror said: “Your friend the
Buccaneer has made a fool of himself; he will have
to pay for it!”

She looked at him scornfully, and answered: “I
don’t know what you are talking about!”

“Do you mean that you are going to make him
pay that towards this hateful, house?”

“I do.”

“And you know he’s got nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are meaner than I thought you.”

Soames turned from the mirror, and unconsciously taking
a china cup from the mantelpiece, clasped his hands
around it as though praying. He saw her bosom
rise and fall, her eyes darkening with anger, and taking
no notice of the taunt, he asked quietly:

“Are you carrying on a flirtation with Bosinney?”

“No, I am not!”

Her eyes met his, and he looked away. He neither
believed nor disbelieved her, but he knew that he
had made a mistake in asking; he never had known,
never would know, what she was thinking. The
sight of her inscrutable face, the thought of all
the hundreds of evenings he had seen her sitting there
like that soft and passive, but unreadable, unknown,
enraged him beyond measure.

Page 153

“I believe you are made of stone,” he
said, clenching his fingers so hard that he broke
the fragile cup. The pieces fell into the grate.
And Irene smiled.

“You seem to forget,” she said, “that
cup is not!”

Soames gripped her arm. “A good beating,”
he said, “is the only thing that would bring
you to your senses,” but turning on his heel,
he left the room.

CHAPTER XIV

SOAMES SITS ON THE STAIRS

Soames went upstairs that night that he had gone too
far. He was prepared to offer excuses for his
words.

He turned out the gas still burning in the passage
outside their room. Pausing, with his hand on
the knob of the door, he tried to shape his apology,
for he had no intention of letting her see that he
was nervous.

But the door did not open, nor when he pulled it and
turned the handle firmly. She must have locked
it for some reason, and forgotten.

Entering his dressing-room where the gas was also
light and burning low, he went quickly to the other
door. That too was locked. Then he noticed
that the camp bed which he occasionally used was prepared,
and his sleeping-suit laid out upon it. He put
his hand up to his forehead, and brought it away wet.
It dawned on him that he was barred out.

He went back to the door, and rattling the handle
stealthily, called: “Unlock the door, do
you hear? Unlock the door!”

There was a faint rustling, but no answer.

“Do you hear? Let me in at once—­I
insist on being let in!”

He could catch the sound of her breathing close to
the door, like the breathing of a creature threatened
by danger.

There was something terrifying in this inexorable
silence, in the impossibility of getting at her.
He went back to the other door, and putting his whole
weight against it, tried to burst it open. The
door was a new one—­he had had them renewed
himself, in readiness for their coming in after the
honeymoon. In a rage he lifted his foot to kick
in the panel; the thought of the servants restrained
him, and he felt suddenly that he was beaten.

Flinging himself down in the dressing-room, he took
up a book.

But instead of the print he seemed to see his wife—­with
her yellow hair flowing over her bare shoulders, and
her great dark eyes—­standing like an animal
at bay. And the whole meaning of her act of revolt
came to him. She meant it to be for good.

He could not sit still, and went to the door again.
He could still hear her, and he called: “Irene!
Irene!”

He did not mean to make his voice pathetic.

In ominous answer, the faint sounds ceased.
He stood with clenched hands, thinking.

Presently he stole round on tiptoe, and running suddenly
at the other door, made a supreme effort to break
it open. It creaked, but did not yield.
He sat down on the stairs and buried his face in his
hands.

Page 154

For a long time he sat there in the dark, the moon
through the skylight above laying a pale smear which
lengthened slowly towards him down the stairway.
He tried to be philosophical.

Since she had locked her doors she had no further
claim as a wife, and he would console himself with
other women.

It was but a spectral journey he made among such delights—­he
had no appetite for these exploits. He had never
had much, and he had lost the habit. He felt
that he could never recover it. His hunger could
only be appeased by his wife, inexorable and frightened,
behind these shut doors. No other woman could
help him.

This conviction came to him with terrible force out
there in the dark.

His philosophy left him; and surly anger took its
place. Her conduct was immoral, inexcusable,
worthy of any punishment within his power. He
desired no one but her, and she refused him!

She must really hate him, then! He had never
believed it yet. He did not believe it now.
It seemed to him incredible. He felt as though
he had lost for ever his power of judgment.
If she, so soft and yielding as he had always judged
her, could take this decided step—­what could
not happen?

Then he asked himself again if she were carrying on
an intrigue with Bosinney. He did not believe
that she was; he could not afford to believe such
a reason for her conduct—­the thought was
not to be faced.

It would be unbearable to contemplate the necessity
of making his marital relations public property.
Short of the most convincing proofs he must still
refuse to believe, for he did not wish to punish himself.
And all the time at heart—­he did believe.

The moonlight cast a greyish tinge over his figure,
hunched against the staircase wall.

Bosinney was in love with her! He hated the
fellow, and would not spare him now. He could
and would refuse to pay a penny piece over twelve
thousand and fifty pounds—­the extreme limit
fixed in the correspondence; or rather he would pay,
he would pay and sue him for damages. He would
go to Jobling and Boulter and put the matter in their
hands. He would ruin the impecunious beggar!
And suddenly—­though what connection between
the thoughts?—­he reflected that Irene had
no money either. They were both beggars.
This gave him a strange satisfaction.

The silence was broken by a faint creaking through
the wall. She was going to bed at last.
Ah! Joy and pleasant dreams! If she threw
the door open wide he would not go in now!

But his lips, that were twisted in a bitter smile,
twitched; he covered his eyes with his hands....

It was late the following afternoon when Soames stood
in the dining-room window gazing gloomily into the
Square.

The sunlight still showered on the plane-trees, and
in the breeze their gay broad leaves shone and swung
in rhyme to a barrel organ at the corner. It
was playing a waltz, an old waltz that was out of fashion,
with a fateful rhythm in the notes; and it went on
and on, though nothing indeed but leaves danced to
the tune.

Page 155

The woman did not look too gay, for she was tired;
and from the tall houses no one threw her down coppers.
She moved the organ on, and three doors off began
again.

It was the waltz they had played at Roger’s
when Irene had danced with Bosinney; and the perfume
of the gardenias she had worn came back to Soames,
drifted by the malicious music, as it had been drifted
to him then, when she passed, her hair glistening,
her eyes so soft, drawing Bosinney on and on down
an endless ballroom.

The organ woman plied her handle slowly; she had been
grinding her tune all day-grinding it in Sloane Street
hard by, grinding it perhaps to Bosinney himself.

Soames turned, took a cigarette from the carven box,
and walked back to the window. The tune had
mesmerized him, and there came into his view Irene,
her sunshade furled, hastening homewards down the Square,
in a soft, rose-coloured blouse with drooping sleeves,
that he did not know. She stopped before the
organ, took out her purse, and gave the woman money.

Soames shrank back and stood where he could see into
the hall.

She came in with her latch-key, put down her sunshade,
and stood looking at herself in the glass. Her
cheeks were flushed as if the sun had burned them;
her lips were parted in a smile. She stretched
her arms out as though to embrace herself, with a
laugh that for all the world was like a sob.

Soames stepped forward.

“Very-pretty!” he said.

But as though shot she spun round, and would have
passed him up the stairs. He barred the way.

“Why such a hurry?” he said, and his eyes
fastened on a curl of hair fallen loose across her
ear....

He hardly recognised her. She seemed on fire,
so deep and rich the colour of her cheeks, her eyes,
her lips, and of the unusual blouse she wore.

She put up her hand and smoothed back the curl.
She was breathing fast and deep, as though she had
been running, and with every breath perfume seemed
to come from her hair, and from her body, like perfume
from an opening flower.

“I don’t like that blouse,” he said
slowly, “it’s a soft, shapeless thing!”

He lifted his finger towards her breast, but she dashed
his hand aside.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried.

He caught her wrist; she wrenched it away.

“And where may you have been?” he asked.

“In heaven—­out of this house!”
With those words she fled upstairs.

Outside—­in thanksgiving—­at the
very door, the organ-grinder was playing the waltz.

And Soames stood motionless. What prevented
him from following her?

Was it that, with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney
looking down from that high window in Sloane Street,
straining his eyes for yet another glimpse of Irene’s
vanished figure, cooling his flushed face, dreaming
of the moment when she flung herself on his breast—­the
scent of her still in the air around, and the sound
of her laugh that was like a sob?

Page 156

PART III

CHAPTER I

Mrs. MACANDER’S evidence

Many people, no doubt, including the editor of the
’Ultra Vivisectionist,’ then in the bloom
of its first youth, would say that Soames was less
than a man not to have removed the locks from his wife’s
doors, and, after beating her soundly, resumed wedded
happiness.

Brutality is not so deplorably diluted by humaneness
as it used to be, yet a sentimental segment of the
population may still be relieved to learn that he
did none of these things. For active brutality
is not popular with Forsytes; they are too circumspect,
and, on the whole, too softhearted. And in Soames
there was some common pride, not sufficient to make
him do a really generous action, but enough to prevent
his indulging in an extremely mean one, except, perhaps,
in very hot blood. Above all this a true Forsyte
refused to feel himself ridiculous. Short of
actually beating his wife, he perceived nothing to
be done; he therefore accepted the situation without
another word.

Throughout the summer and autumn he continued to go
to the office, to sort his pictures, and ask his friends
to dinner.

He did not leave town; Irene refused to go away.
The house at Robin Hill, finished though it was,
remained empty and ownerless. Soames had brought
a suit against the Buccaneer, in which he claimed from
him the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds.

A firm of solicitors, Messrs. Freak and Able, had
put in a defence on Bosinney’s behalf.
Admitting the facts, they raised a point on the correspondence
which, divested of legal phraseology, amounted to this:
To speak of ‘a free hand in the terms of this
correspondence’ is an Irish bull.

By a chance, fortuitous but not improbable in the
close borough of legal circles, a good deal of information
came to Soames’ ear anent this line of policy,
the working partner in his firm, Bustard, happening
to sit next at dinner at Walmisley’s, the Taxing
Master, to young Chankery, of the Common Law Bar.

The necessity for talking what is known as ‘shop,’
which comes on all lawyers with the removal of the
ladies, caused Chankery, a young and promising advocate,
to propound an impersonal conundrum to his neighbour,
whose name he did not know, for, seated as he permanently
was in the background, Bustard had practically no
name.

He had, said Chankery, a case coming on with a ‘very
nice point.’ He then explained, preserving
every professional discretion, the riddle in Soames’
case. Everyone, he said, to whom he had spoken,
thought it a nice point. The issue was small
unfortunately, ’though d——­d
serious for his client he believed’—­Walmisley’s
champagne was bad but plentiful. A Judge would
make short work of it, he was afraid. He intended
to make a big effort—­the point was a nice
one. What did his neighbour say?

Page 157

Bustard, a model of secrecy, said nothing. He
related the incident to Soames however with some malice,
for this quiet man was capable of human feeling, ending
with his own opinion that the point was ’a very
nice one.’

In accordance with his resolve, our Forsyte had put
his interests into the hands of Jobling and Boulter.
From the moment of doing so he regretted that he
had not acted for himself. On receiving a copy
of Bosinney’s defence he went over to their
offices.

Boulter, who had the matter in hand, Jobling having
died some years before, told him that in his opinion
it was rather a nice point; he would like counsel’s
opinion on it.

Soames told him to go to a good man, and they went
to Waterbuck, Q.C., marking him ten and one, who kept
the papers six weeks and then wrote as follows:

’In my opinion the true interpretation of this
correspondence depends very much on the intention
of the parties, and will turn upon the evidence given
at the trial. I am of opinion that an attempt
should be made to secure from the architect an admission
that he understood he was not to spend at the outside
more than twelve thousand and fifty pounds. With
regard to the expression, “a free hand in the
terms of this correspondence,” to which my attention
is directed, the point is a nice one; but I am of
opinion that upon the whole the ruling in “Boileau
v. The Blasted Cement Co., Ltd.,” will
apply.’

Upon this opinion they acted, administering interrogatories,
but to their annoyance Messrs. Freak and Able answered
these in so masterly a fashion that nothing whatever
was admitted and that without prejudice.

It was on October 1 that Soames read Waterbuck’s
opinion, in the dining-room before dinner.

It made him nervous; not so much because of the case
of ’Boileau v. The Blasted Cement Co.,
Ltd.,’ as that the point had lately begun to
seem to him, too, a nice one; there was about it just
that pleasant flavour of subtlety so attractive to
the best legal appetites. To have his own impression
confirmed by Waterbuck, Q.C., would have disturbed
any man.

He sat thinking it over, and staring at the empty
grate, for though autumn had come, the weather kept
as gloriously fine that jubilee year as if it were
still high August. It was not pleasant to be
disturbed; he desired too passionately to set his
foot on Bosinney’s neck.

Though he had not seen the architect since the last
afternoon at Robin Hill, he was never free from the
sense of his presence—­never free from the
memory of his worn face with its high cheek bones and
enthusiastic eyes. It would not be too much
to say that he had never got rid of the feeling of
that night when he heard the peacock’s cry at
dawn—­the feeling that Bosinney haunted
the house. And every man’s shape that he
saw in the dark evenings walking past, seemed that
of him whom George had so appropriately named the
Buccaneer.

Page 158

Irene still met him, he was certain; where, or how,
he neither knew, nor asked; deterred by a vague and
secret dread of too much knowledge. It all seemed
subterranean nowadays.

Sometimes when he questioned his wife as to where
she had been, which he still made a point of doing,
as every Forsyte should, she looked very strange.
Her self-possession was wonderful, but there were
moments when, behind the mask of her face, inscrutable
as it had always been to him, lurked an expression
he had never been used to see there.

She had taken to lunching out too; when he asked Bilson
if her mistress had been in to lunch, as often as
not she would answer: “No, sir.”

He strongly disapproved of her gadding about by herself,
and told her so. But she took no notice.
There was something that angered, amazed, yet almost
amused him about the calm way in which she disregarded
his wishes. It was really as if she were hugging
to herself the thought of a triumph over him.

He rose from the perusal of Waterbuck, Q.C.’s
opinion, and, going upstairs, entered her room, for
she did not lock her doors till bed-time—­she
had the decency, he found, to save the feelings of
the servants. She was brushing her hair, and
turned to him with strange fierceness.

“What do you want?” she said. “Please
leave my room!”

He answered: “I want to know how long this
state of things between us is to last? I have
put up with it long enough.”

“Will you please leave my room?”

“Will you treat me as your husband?”

“No.”

“Then, I shall take steps to make you.”

“Do!”

He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer.
Her lips were compressed in a thin line; her hair
lay in fluffy masses on her bare shoulders, in all
its strange golden contrast to her dark eyes—­those
eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt,
and odd, haunting triumph.

“Now, please, will you leave my room?”
He turned round, and went sulkily out.

He knew very well that he had no intention of taking
steps, and he saw that she knew too—­knew
that he was afraid to.

It was a habit with him to tell her the doings of
his day: how such and such clients had called;
how he had arranged a mortgage for Parkes; how that
long-standing suit of Fryer v. Forsyte was getting
on, which, arising in the preternaturally careful
disposition of his property by his great uncle Nicholas,
who had tied it up so that no one could get at it
at all, seemed likely to remain a source of income
for several solicitors till the Day of Judgment.

And how he had called in at Jobson’s, and seen
a Boucher sold, which he had just missed buying of
Talleyrand and Sons in Pall Mall.

He had an admiration for Boucher, Watteau, and all
that school. It was a habit with him to tell
her all these matters, and he continued to do it even
now, talking for long spells at dinner, as though by
the volubility of words he could conceal from himself
the ache in his heart.

Page 159

Often, if they were alone, he made an attempt to kiss
her when she said good-night. He may have had
some vague notion that some night she would let him;
or perhaps only the feeling that a husband ought to
kiss his wife. Even if she hated him, he at
all events ought not to put himself in the wrong by
neglecting this ancient rite.

And why did she hate him? Even now he could
not altogether believe it. It was strange to
be hated!—­the emotion was too extreme; yet
he hated Bosinney, that Buccaneer, that prowling vagabond,
that night-wanderer. For in his thoughts Soames
always saw him lying in wait—­wandering.
Ah, but he must be in very low water! Young
Burkitt, the architect, had seen him coming out of
a third-rate restaurant, looking terribly down in the
mouth!

During all the hours he lay awake, thinking over the
situation, which seemed to have no end—­unless
she should suddenly come to her senses—­never
once did the thought of separating from his wife seriously
enter his head....

And the Forsytes! What part did they play in
this stage of Soames’ subterranean tragedy?

Truth to say, little or none, for they were at the
sea.

From hotels, hydropathics, or lodging-houses, they
were bathing daily; laying in a stock of ozone to
last them through the winter.

Each section, in the vineyard of its own choosing,
grew and culled and pressed and bottled the grapes
of a pet sea-air.

The end of September began to witness their several
returns.

In rude health and small omnibuses, with considerable
colour in their cheeks, they arrived daily from the
various termini. The following morning saw them
back at their vocations.

On the next Sunday Timothy’s was thronged from
lunch till dinner.

Amongst other gossip, too numerous and interesting
to relate, Mrs. Septimus Small mentioned that Soames
and Irene had not been away.

It remained for a comparative outsider to supply the
next evidence of interest.

It chanced that one afternoon late in September, Mrs.
MacAnder, Winifred Dartie’s greatest friend,
taking a constitutional, with young Augustus Flippard,
on her bicycle in Richmond Park, passed Irene and Bosinney
walking from the bracken towards the Sheen Gate.

Perhaps the poor little woman was thirsty, for she
had ridden long on a hard, dry road, and, as all London
knows, to ride a bicycle and talk to young Flippard
will try the toughest constitution; or perhaps the
sight of the cool bracken grove, whence ‘those
two’ were coming down, excited her envy.
The cool bracken grove on the top of the hill, with
the oak boughs for roof, where the pigeons were raising
an endless wedding hymn, and the autumn, humming,
whispered to the ears of lovers in the fern, while
the deer stole by. The bracken grove of irretrievable
delights, of golden minutes in the long marriage of
heaven and earth! The bracken grove, sacred
to stags, to strange tree-stump fauns leaping around
the silver whiteness of a birch-tree nymph at summer
dusk.

Page 160

This lady knew all the Forsytes, and having been at
June’s ‘at home,’ was not at a loss
to see with whom she had to deal. Her own marriage,
poor thing, had not been successful, but having had
the good sense and ability to force her husband into
pronounced error, she herself had passed through the
necessary divorce proceedings without incurring censure.

She was therefore a judge of all that sort of thing,
and lived in one of those large buildings, where in
small sets of apartments, are gathered incredible
quantities of Forsytes, whose chief recreation out
of business hours is the discussion of each other’s
affairs.

Poor little woman, perhaps she was thirsty, certainly
she was bored, for Flippard was a wit. To see
‘those two’ in so unlikely a spot was quite
a merciful ‘pick-me-up.’

At the MacAnder, like all London, Time pauses.

This small but remarkable woman merits attention;
her all-seeing eye and shrewd tongue were inscrutably
the means of furthering the ends of Providence.

With an air of being in at the death, she had an almost
distressing power of taking care of herself.
She had done more, perhaps, in her way than any woman
about town to destroy the sense of chivalry which still
clogs the wheel of civilization. So smart she
was, and spoken of endearingly as ‘the little
MacAnder!’

Dressing tightly and well, she belonged to a Woman’s
Club, but was by no means the neurotic and dismal
type of member who was always thinking of her rights.
She took her rights unconsciously, they came natural
to her, and she knew exactly how to make the most
of them without exciting anything but admiration amongst
that great class to whom she was affiliated, not precisely
perhaps by manner, but by birth, breeding, and the
true, the secret gauge, a sense of property.

The daughter of a Bedfordshire solicitor, by the daughter
of a clergyman, she had never, through all the painful
experience of being married to a very mild painter
with a cranky love of Nature, who had deserted her
for an actress, lost touch with the requirements,
beliefs, and inner feeling of Society; and, on attaining
her liberty, she placed herself without effort in
the very van of Forsyteism.

Always in good spirits, and ‘full of information,’
she was universally welcomed. She excited neither
surprise nor disapprobation when encountered on the
Rhine or at Zermatt, either alone, or travelling with
a lady and two gentlemen; it was felt that she was
perfectly capable of taking care of herself; and the
hearts of all Forsytes warmed to that wonderful instinct,
which enabled her to enjoy everything without giving
anything away. It was generally felt that to
such women as Mrs. MacAnder should we look for the
perpetuation and increase of our best type of woman.
She had never had any children.

If there was one thing more than another that she
could not stand it was one of those soft women with
what men called ‘charm’ about them, and
for Mrs. Soames she always had an especial dislike.

Page 161

Obscurely, no doubt, she felt that if charm were once
admitted as the criterion, smartness and capability
must go to the wall; and she hated—­with
a hatred the deeper that at times this so-called charm
seemed to disturb all calculations—­the
subtle seductiveness which she could not altogether
overlook in Irene.

She said, however, that she could see nothing in the
woman—­there was no ‘go’ about
her—­she would never be able to stand up
for herself—­anyone could take advantage
of her, that was plain—­she could not see
in fact what men found to admire!

She was not really ill-natured, but, in maintaining
her position after the trying circumstances of her
married life, she had found it so necessary to be
‘full of information,’ that the idea of
holding her tongue about ‘those two’ in
the Park never occurred to her.

And it so happened that she was dining that very evening
at Timothy’s, where she went sometimes to ‘cheer
the old things up,’ as she was wont to put it.
The same people were always asked to meet her:
Winifred Dartie and her husband; Francie, because
she belonged to the artistic circles, for Mrs. MacAnder
was known to contribute articles on dress to ’The
Ladies Kingdom Come’; and for her to flirt with,
provided they could be obtained, two of the Hayman
boys, who, though they never said anything, were believed
to be fast and thoroughly intimate with all that was
latest in smart Society.

At twenty-five minutes past seven she turned out the
electric light in her little hall, and wrapped in
her opera cloak with the chinchilla collar, came out
into the corridor, pausing a moment to make sure she
had her latch-key. These little self-contained
flats were convenient; to be sure, she had no light
and no air, but she could shut it up whenever she
liked and go away. There was no bother with servants,
and she never felt tied as she used to when poor,
dear Fred was always about, in his mooney way.
She retained no rancour against poor, dear Fred, he
was such a fool; but the thought of that actress drew
from her, even now, a little, bitter, derisive smile.

Firmly snapping the door to, she crossed the corridor,
with its gloomy, yellow-ochre walls, and its infinite
vista of brown, numbered doors. The lift was
going down; and wrapped to the ears in the high cloak,
with every one of her auburn hairs in its place, she
waited motionless for it to stop at her floor.
The iron gates clanked open; she entered. There
were already three occupants, a man in a great white
waistcoat, with a large, smooth face like a baby’s,
and two old ladies in black, with mittened hands.

Mrs. MacAnder smiled at them; she knew everybody;
and all these three, who had been admirably silent
before, began to talk at once. This was Mrs.
MacAnder’s successful secret. She provoked
conversation.

Throughout a descent of five stories the conversation
continued, the lift boy standing with his back turned,
his cynical face protruding through the bars.

Page 162

At the bottom they separated, the man in the white
waistcoat sentimentally to the billiard room, the
old ladies to dine and say to each other: “A
dear little woman!” “Such a rattle!”
and Mrs. MacAnder to her cab.

When Mrs. MacAnder dined at Timothy’s, the conversation
(although Timothy himself could never be induced to
be present) took that wider, man-of-the-world tone
current among Forsytes at large, and this, no doubt,
was what put her at a premium there.

Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester found it an exhilarating
change. “If only,” they said, “Timothy
would meet her!” It was felt that she would
do him good. She could tell you, for instance,
the latest story of Sir Charles Fiste’s son
at Monte Carlo; who was the real heroine of Tynemouth
Eddy’s fashionable novel that everyone was holding
up their hands over, and what they were doing in Paris
about wearing bloomers. She was so sensible,
too, knowing all about that vexed question, whether
to send young Nicholas’ eldest into the navy
as his mother wished, or make him an accountant as
his father thought would be safer. She strongly
deprecated the navy. If you were not exceptionally
brilliant or exceptionally well connected, they passed
you over so disgracefully, and what was it after all
to look forward to, even if you became an admiral—­a
pittance! An accountant had many more chances,
but let him be put with a good firm, where there was
no risk at starting!

Sometimes she would give them a tip on the Stock Exchange;
not that Mrs. Small or Aunt Hester ever took it.
They had indeed no money to invest; but it seemed
to bring them into such exciting touch with the realities
of life. It was an event. They would ask
Timothy, they said. But they never did, knowing
in advance that it would upset him. Surreptitiously,
however, for weeks after they would look in that paper,
which they took with respect on account of its really
fashionable proclivities, to see whether ‘Bright’s
Rubies’ or ‘The Woollen Mackintosh Company’
were up or down. Sometimes they could not find
the name of the company at all; and they would wait
until James or Roger or even Swithin came in, and ask
them in voices trembling with curiosity how that ’Bolivia
Lime and Speltrate’ was doing—­they
could not find it in the paper.

And Roger would answer: “What do you want
to know for? Some trash! You’ll go
burning your fingers—­investing your money
in lime, and things you know nothing about!
Who told you?” and ascertaining what they had
been told, he would go away, and, making inquiries
in the City, would perhaps invest some of his own
money in the concern.

It was about the middle of dinner, just in fact as
the saddle of mutton had been brought in by Smither,
that Mrs. MacAnder, looking airily round, said:
“Oh! and whom do you think I passed to-day in
Richmond Park? You’ll never guess—­Mrs.
Soames and—­Mr. Bosinney. They must
have been down to look at the house!”

Page 163

Winifred Dartie coughed, and no one said a word.
It was the piece of evidence they had all unconsciously
been waiting for.

To do Mrs. MacAnder justice, she had been to Switzerland
and the Italian lakes with a party of three, and had
not heard of Soames’ rupture with his architect.
She could not tell, therefore, the profound impression
her words would make.

Upright and a little flushed, she moved her small,
shrewd eyes from face to face, trying to gauge the
effect of her words. On either side of her a
Hayman boy, his lean, taciturn, hungry face turned
towards his plate, ate his mutton steadily.

These two, Giles and Jesse, were so alike and so inseparable
that they were known as the Dromios. They never
talked, and seemed always completely occupied in doing
nothing. It was popularly supposed that they
were cramming for an important examination. They
walked without hats for long hours in the Gardens
attached to their house, books in their hands, a fox-terrier
at their heels, never saying a word, and smoking all
the time. Every morning, about fifty yards apart,
they trotted down Campden Hill on two lean hacks,
with legs as long as their own, and every morning
about an hour later, still fifty yards apart, they
cantered up again. Every evening, wherever they
had dined, they might be observed about half-past
ten, leaning over the balustrade of the Alhambra promenade.

They were never seen otherwise than together; in this
way passing their lives, apparently perfectly content.

Inspired by some dumb stirring within them of the
feelings of gentlemen, they turned at this painful
moment to Mrs. MacAnder, and said in precisely the
same voice: “Have you seen the...?”

Such was her surprise at being thus addressed that
she put down her fork; and Smither, who was passing,
promptly removed her plate. Mrs. MacAnder, however,
with presence of mind, said instantly: “I
must have a little more of that nice mutton.”

But afterwards in the drawing—­room she
sat down by Mrs. Small, determined to get to the bottom
of the matter. And she began:

“What a charming woman, Mrs. Soames; such a
sympathetic temperament! Soames is a really lucky
man!”

Her anxiety for information had not made sufficient
allowance for that inner Forsyte skin which refuses
to share its troubles with outsiders.

Mrs. Septimus Small, drawing herself up with a creak
and rustle of her whole person, said, shivering in
her dignity:

“My dear, it is a subject we do not talk about!”

CHAPTER II

NIGHT IN THE PARK

Although with her infallible instinct Mrs. Small had
said the very thing to make her guest ‘more
intriguee than ever,’ it is difficult to see
how else she could truthfully have spoken.

It was not a subject which the Forsytes could talk
about even among themselves—­to use the
word Soames had invented to characterize to himself
the situation, it was ‘subterranean.’

Page 164

Yet, within a week of Mrs. MacAnder’s encounter
in Richmond Park, to all of them—­save Timothy,
from whom it was carefully kept—­to James
on his domestic beat from the Poultry to Park Lane,
to George the wild one, on his daily adventure from
the bow window at the Haversnake to the billiard room
at the ‘Red Pottle,’ was it known that
‘those two’ had gone to extremes.

George (it was he who invented many of those striking
expressions still current in fashionable circles)
voiced the sentiment more accurately than any one
when he said to his brother Eustace that ‘the
Buccaneer’ was ‘going it’; he expected
Soames was about ‘fed up.’

It was felt that he must be, and yet, what could be
done? He ought perhaps to take steps; but to
take steps would be deplorable.

Without an open scandal which they could not see their
way to recommending, it was difficult to see what
steps could be taken. In this impasse, the only
thing was to say nothing to Soames, and nothing to
each other; in fact, to pass it over.

By displaying towards Irene a dignified coldness,
some impression might be made upon her; but she was
seldom now to be seen, and there seemed a slight difficulty
in seeking her out on purpose to show her coldness.
Sometimes in the privacy of his bedroom James would
reveal to Emily the real suffering that his son’s
misfortune caused him.

“I can’t tell,” he would say; “it
worries me out of my life. There’ll be
a scandal, and that’ll do him no good.
I shan’t say anything to him. There might
be nothing in it. What do you think? She’s
very artistic, they tell me. What? Oh,
you’re a ’regular Juley! Well, I
don’t know; I expect the worst. This is
what comes of having no children. I knew how
it would be from the first. They never told me
they didn’t mean to have any children—­nobody
tells me anything!”

On his knees by the side of the bed, his eyes open
and fixed with worry, he would breathe into the counterpane.
Clad in his nightshirt, his neck poked forward, his
back rounded, he resembled some long white bird.

“Our Father-,” he repeated, turning over
and over again the thought of this possible scandal.

Like old Jolyon, he, too, at the bottom of his heart
set the blame of the tragedy down to family interference.
What business had that lot—­he began to
think of the Stanhope Gate branch, including young
Jolyon and his daughter, as ’that lot’—­to
introduce a person like this Bosinney into the family?
(He had heard George’s soubriquet, ‘The
Buccaneer,’ but he could make nothing of that—­the
young man was an architect.)

He began to feel that his brother Jolyon, to whom
he had always looked up and on whose opinion he had
relied, was not quite what he had expected.

Page 165

Not having his eldest brother’s force of character,
he was more sad than angry. His great comfort
was to go to Winifred’s, and take the little
Darties in his carriage over to Kensington Gardens,
and there, by the Round Pond, he could often be seen
walking with his eyes fixed anxiously on little Publius
Dartie’s sailing-boat, which he had himself freighted
with a penny, as though convinced that it would never
again come to shore; while little Publius—­who,
James delighted to say, was not a bit like his father
skipping along under his lee, would try to get him
to bet another that it never would, having found that
it always did. And James would make the bet;
he always paid—­sometimes as many as three
or four pennies in the afternoon, for the game seemed
never to pall on little Publius—­and always
in paying he said: “Now, that’s for
your money-box. Why, you’re getting quite
a rich man!” The thought of his little grandson’s
growing wealth was a real pleasure to him. But
little Publius knew a sweet-shop, and a trick worth
two of that.

And they would walk home across the Park, James’
figure, with high shoulders and absorbed and worried
face, exercising its tall, lean protectorship, pathetically
unregarded, over the robust child-figures of Imogen
and little Publius.

But those Gardens and that Park were not sacred to
James. Forsytes and tramps, children and lovers,
rested and wandered day after day, night after night,
seeking one and all some freedom from labour, from
the reek and turmoil of the streets.

The leaves browned slowly, lingering with the sun
and summer-like warmth of the nights.

On Saturday, October 5, the sky that had been blue
all day deepened after sunset to the bloom of purple
grapes. There was no moon, and a clear dark,
like some velvety garment, was wrapped around the trees,
whose thinned branches, resembling plumes, stirred
not in the still, warm air. All London had poured
into the Park, draining the cup of summer to its dregs.

Couple after couple, from every gate, they streamed
along the paths and over the burnt grass, and one
after another, silently out of the lighted spaces,
stole into the shelter of the feathery trees, where,
blotted against some trunk, or under the shadow of
shrubs, they were lost to all but themselves in the
heart of the soft darkness.

To fresh-comers along the paths, these forerunners
formed but part of that passionate dusk, whence only
a strange murmur, like the confused beating of hearts,
came forth. But when that murmur reached each
couple in the lamp-light their voices wavered, and
ceased; their arms enlaced, their eyes began seeking,
searching, probing the blackness. Suddenly, as
though drawn by invisible hands, they, too, stepped
over the railing, and, silent as shadows, were gone
from the light.

Page 166

The stillness, enclosed in the far, inexorable roar
of the town, was alive with the myriad passions, hopes,
and loves of multitudes of struggling human atoms;
for in spite of the disapproval of that great body
of Forsytes, the Municipal Council—­to whom
Love had long been considered, next to the Sewage
Question, the gravest danger to the community—­a
process was going on that night in the Park, and in
a hundred other parks, without which the thousand
factories, churches, shops, taxes, and drains, of
which they were custodians, were as arteries without
blood, a man without a heart.

The instincts of self-forgetfulness, of passion, and
of love, hiding under the trees, away from the trustees
of their remorseless enemy, the ‘sense of property,’
were holding a stealthy revel, and Soames, returning
from Bayswater for he had been alone to dine at Timothy’s
walking home along the water, with his mind upon that
coming lawsuit, had the blood driven from his heart
by a low laugh and the sound of kisses. He thought
of writing to the Times the next morning, to draw the
attention of the Editor to the condition of our parks.
He did not, however, for he had a horror of seeing
his name in print.

But starved as he was, the whispered sounds in the
stillness, the half-seen forms in the dark, acted
on him like some morbid stimulant. He left the
path along the water and stole under the trees, along
the deep shadow of little plantations, where the boughs
of chestnut trees hung their great leaves low, and
there was blacker refuge, shaping his course in circles
which had for their object a stealthy inspection of
chairs side by side, against tree-trunks, of enlaced
lovers, who stirred at his approach.

Now he stood still on the rise overlooking the Serpentine,
where, in full lamp-light, black against the silver
water, sat a couple who never moved, the woman’s
face buried on the man’s neck—­a single
form, like a carved emblem of passion, silent and
unashamed.

And, stung by the sight, Soames hurried on deeper
into the shadow of the trees.

In this search, who knows what he thought and what
he sought? Bread for hunger—­light
in darkness? Who knows what he expected to find—­impersonal
knowledge of the human heart—­the end of
his private subterranean tragedy—­for, again,
who knew, but that each dark couple, unnamed, unnameable,
might not be he and she?

But it could not be such knowledge as this that he
was seeking—­the wife of Soames Forsyte
sitting in the Park like a common wench! Such
thoughts were inconceivable; and from tree to tree,
with his noiseless step, he passed.

Once he was sworn at; once the whisper, “If
only it could always be like this!” sent the
blood flying again from his heart, and he waited there,
patient and dogged, for the two to move. But
it was only a poor thin slip of a shop-girl in her
draggled blouse who passed him, clinging to her lover’s
arm.

A hundred other lovers too whispered that hope in
the stillness of the trees, a hundred other lovers
clung to each other.

Page 167

But shaking himself with sudden disgust, Soames returned
to the path, and left that seeking for he knew not
what.

CHAPTER III

MEETING AT THE BOTANICAL

Young Jolyon, whose circumstances were not those of
a Forsyte, found at times a difficulty in sparing
the money needful for those country jaunts and researches
into Nature, without having prosecuted which no watercolour
artist ever puts brush to paper.

He was frequently, in fact, obliged to take his colour-box
into the Botanical Gardens, and there, on his stool,
in the shade of a monkey-puzzler or in the lee of
some India-rubber plant, he would spend long hours
sketching.

An Art critic who had recently been looking at his
work had delivered himself as follows:

“In a way your drawings are very good; tone
and colour, in some of them certainly quite a feeling
for Nature. But, you see, they’re so scattered;
you’ll never get the public to look at them.
Now, if you’d taken a definite subject, such
as ‘London by Night,’ or ’The Crystal
Palace in the Spring,’ and made a regular series,
the public would have known at once what they were
looking at. I can’t lay too much stress
upon that. All the men who are making great names
in Art, like Crum Stone or Bleeder, are making them
by avoiding the unexpected; by specializing and putting
their works all in the same pigeon-hole, so that the
public know pat once where to go. And this stands
to reason, for if a man’s a collector he doesn’t
want people to smell at the canvas to find out whom
his pictures are by; he wants them to be able to say
at once, ’A capital Forsyte!’ It is all
the more important for you to be careful to choose
a subject that they can lay hold of on the spot, since
there’s no very marked originality in your style.”

Young Jolyon, standing by the little piano, where
a bowl of dried rose leaves, the only produce of the
garden, was deposited on a bit of faded damask, listened
with his dim smile.

Turning to his wife, who was looking at the speaker
with an angry expression on her thin face, he said:

“You see, dear?”

“I do not,” she answered in her staccato
voice, that still had a little foreign accent; “your
style has originality.”

The critic looked at her, smiled’ deferentially,
and said no more. Like everyone else, he knew
their history.

The words bore good fruit with young Jolyon; they
were contrary to all that he believed in, to all that
he theoretically held good in his Art, but some strange,
deep instinct moved him against his will to turn them
to profit.

He discovered therefore one morning that an idea had
come to him for making a series of watercolour drawings
of London. How the idea had arisen he could
not tell; and it was not till the following year, when
he had completed and sold them at a very fair price,
that in one of his impersonal moods, he found himself
able to recollect the Art critic, and to discover
in his own achievement another proof that he was a
Forsyte.

Page 168

He decided to commence with the Botanical Gardens,
where he had already made so many studies, and chose
the little artificial pond, sprinkled now with an
autumn shower of red and yellow leaves, for though
the gardeners longed to sweep them off, they could
not reach them with their brooms. The rest of
the gardens they swept bare enough, removing every
morning Nature’s rain of leaves; piling them
in heaps, whence from slow fires rose the sweet, acrid
smoke that, like the cuckoo’s note for spring,
the scent of lime trees for the summer, is the true
emblem of the fall. The gardeners’ tidy
souls could not abide the gold and green and russet
pattern on the grass. The gravel paths must lie
unstained, ordered, methodical, without knowledge
of the realities of life, nor of that slow and beautiful
decay which flings crowns underfoot to star the earth
with fallen glories, whence, as the cycle rolls, will
leap again wild spring.

Thus each leaf that fell was marked from the moment
when it fluttered a good-bye and dropped, slow turning,
from its twig.

But on that little pond the leaves floated in peace,
and praised Heaven with their hues, the sunlight haunting
over them.

And so young Jolyon found them.

Coming there one morning in the middle of October,
he was disconcerted to find a bench about twenty paces
from his stand occupied, for he had a proper horror
of anyone seeing him at work.

A lady in a velvet jacket was sitting there, with
her eyes fixed on the ground. A flowering laurel,
however, stood between, and, taking shelter behind
this, young Jolyon prepared his easel.

His preparations were leisurely; he caught, as every
true artist should, at anything that might delay for
a moment the effort of his work, and he found himself
looking furtively at this unknown dame.

Like his father before him, he had an eye for a face.
This face was charming!

He saw a rounded chin nestling in a cream ruffle,
a delicate face with large dark eyes and soft lips.
A black ‘picture’ hat concealed the hair;
her figure was lightly poised against the back of the
bench, her knees were crossed; the tip of a patent-leather
shoe emerged beneath her skirt. There was something,
indeed, inexpressibly dainty about the person of this
lady, but young Jolyon’s attention was chiefly
riveted by the look on her face, which reminded him
of his wife. It was as though its owner had
come into contact with forces too strong for her.
It troubled him, arousing vague feelings of attraction
and chivalry. Who was she? And what doing
there, alone?

Two young gentlemen of that peculiar breed, at once
forward and shy, found in the Regent’s Park,
came by on their way to lawn tennis, and he noted
with disapproval their furtive stares of admiration.
A loitering gardener halted to do something unnecessary
to a clump of pampas grass; he, too, wanted an excuse
for peeping. A gentleman, old, and, by his hat,
a professor of horticulture, passed three times to
scrutinize her long and stealthily, a queer expression
about his lips.

Page 169

With all these men young Jolyon felt the same vague
irritation. She looked at none of them, yet was
he certain that every man who passed would look at
her like that.

Her face was not the face of a sorceress, who in every
look holds out to men the offer of pleasure; it had
none of the ‘devil’s beauty’ so highly
prized among the first Forsytes of the land; neither
was it of that type, no less adorable, associated
with the box of chocolate; it was not of the spiritually
passionate, or passionately spiritual order, peculiar
to house-decoration and modern poetry; nor did it
seem to promise to the playwright material for the
production of the interesting and neurasthenic figure,
who commits suicide in the last act.

In shape and colouring, in its soft persuasive passivity,
its sensuous purity, this woman’s face reminded
him of Titian’s ‘Heavenly Love,’
a reproduction of which hung over the sideboard in
his dining-room. And her attraction seemed to
be in this soft passivity, in the feeling she gave
that to pressure she must yield.

For what or whom was she waiting, in the silence,
with the trees dropping here and there a leaf, and
the thrushes strutting close on grass, touched with
the sparkle of the autumn rime? Then her charming
face grew eager, and, glancing round, with almost
a lover’s jealousy, young Jolyon saw Bosinney
striding across the grass.

Curiously he watched the meeting, the look in their
eyes, the long clasp of their hands. They sat
down close together, linked for all their outward
discretion. He heard the rapid murmur of their
talk; but what they said he could not catch.

He had rowed in the galley himself! He knew
the long hours of waiting and the lean minutes of
a half-public meeting; the tortures of suspense that
haunt the unhallowed lover.

It required, however, but a glance at their two faces
to see that this was none of those affairs of a season
that distract men and women about town; none of those
sudden appetites that wake up ravening, and are surfeited
and asleep again in six weeks. This was the real
thing! This was what had happened to himself!
Out of this anything might come!

Bosinney was pleading, and she so quiet, so soft,
yet immovable in her passivity, sat looking over the
grass.

Was he the man to carry her off, that tender, passive
being, who would never stir a step for herself?
Who had given him all herself, and would die for
him, but perhaps would never run away with him!

It seemed to young Jolyon that he could hear her saying:
“But, darling, it would ruin you!” For
he himself had experienced to the full the gnawing
fear at the bottom of each woman’s heart that
she is a drag on the man she loves.

And he peeped at them no more; but their soft, rapid
talk came to his ears, with the stuttering song of
some bird who seemed trying to remember the notes
of spring: Joy—­tragedy? Which—­which?

Page 170

And gradually their talk ceased; long silence followed.

‘And where does Soames come in?’ young
Jolyon thought. ’People think she is concerned
about the sin of deceiving her husband! Little
they know of women! She’s eating, after
starvation—­taking her revenge! And
Heaven help her—­for he’ll take his.’

He heard the swish of silk, and, spying round the
laurel, saw them walking away, their hands stealthily
joined....

At the end of July old Jolyon had taken his grand-daughter
to the mountains; and on that visit (the last they
ever paid) June recovered to a great extent her health
and spirits. In the hotels, filled with British
Forsytes—­for old Jolyon could not bear a
‘set of Germans,’ as he called all foreigners—­she
was looked upon with respect—­the only grand-daughter
of that fine-looking, and evidently wealthy, old Mr.
Forsyte. She did not mix freely with people—­to
mix freely with people was not June’s habit—­but
she formed some friendships, and notably one in the
Rhone Valley, with a French girl who was dying of consumption.

Determining at once that her friend should not die,
she forgot, in the institution of a campaign against
Death, much of her own trouble.

Old Jolyon watched the new intimacy with relief and
disapproval; for this additional proof that her life
was to be passed amongst ‘lame ducks’
worried him. Would she never make a friendship
or take an interest in something that would be of
real benefit to her?

‘Taking up with a parcel of foreigners,’
he called it. He often, however, brought home
grapes or roses, and presented them to ‘Mam’zelle’
with an ingratiating twinkle.

Towards the end of September, in spite of June’s
disapproval, Mademoiselle Vigor breathed her last
in the little hotel at St. Luc, to which they had
moved her; and June took her defeat so deeply to heart
that old Jolyon carried her away to Paris. Here,
in contemplation of the ‘Venus de Milo’
and the ‘Madeleine,’ she shook off her
depression, and when, towards the middle of October,
they returned to town, her grandfather believed that
he had effected a cure.

No sooner, however, had they established themselves
in Stanhope Gate than he perceived to his dismay a
return of her old absorbed and brooding manner.
She would sit, staring in front of her, her chin on
her hand, like a little Norse spirit, grim and intent,
while all around in the electric light, then just
installed, shone the great, drawing-room brocaded
up to the frieze, full of furniture from Baple and
Pullbred’s. And in the huge gilt mirror
were reflected those Dresden china groups of young
men in tight knee breeches, at the feet of full-bosomed
ladies nursing on their laps pet lambs, which old
Jolyon had bought when he was a bachelor and thought
so highly of in these days of degenerate taste.
He was a man of most open mind, who, more than any
Forsyte of them all, had moved with the times, but
he could never forget that he had bought these groups
at Jobson’s, and given a lot of money for them.
He often said to June, with a sort of disillusioned
contempt:

Page 171

“You don’t care about them! They’re
not the gimcrack things you and your friends like,
but they cost me seventy pounds!” He was not
a man who allowed his taste to be warped when he knew
for solid reasons that it was sound.

One of the first things that June did on getting home
was to go round to Timothy’s. She persuaded
herself that it was her duty to call there, and cheer
him with an account of all her travels; but in reality
she went because she knew of no other place where,
by some random speech, or roundabout question, she
could glean news of Bosinney.

They received her most cordially: And how was
her dear grandfather? He had not been to see
them since May. Her Uncle Timothy was very poorly,
he had had a lot of trouble with the chimney-sweep
in his bedroom; the stupid man had let the soot down
the chimney! It had quite upset her uncle.

June sat there a long time, dreading, yet passionately
hoping, that they would speak of Bosinney.

But paralyzed by unaccountable discretion, Mrs. Septimus
Small let fall no word, neither did she question June
about him. In desperation the girl asked at
last whether Soames and Irene were in town—­she
had not yet been to see anyone.

It was Aunt Hester who replied: Oh, yes, they
were in town, they had not been away at all.
There was some little difficulty about the house,
she believed. June had heard, no doubt!
She had better ask her Aunt Juley!

June turned to Mrs. Small, who sat upright in her
chair, her hands clasped, her face covered with innumerable
pouts. In answer to the girl’s look she
maintained a strange silence, and when she spoke it
was to ask June whether she had worn night-socks up
in those high hotels where it must be so cold of a
night.

June answered that she had not, she hated the stuffy
things; and rose to leave.

Mrs. Small’s infallibly chosen silence was far
more ominous to her than anything that could have
been said.

Before half an hour was over she had dragged the truth
from Mrs. Baynes in Lowndes Square, that Soames was
bringing an action against Bosinney over the decoration
of the house.

Instead of disturbing her, the news had a strangely
calming effect; as though she saw in the prospect
of this struggle new hope for herself. She learnt
that the case was expected to come on in about a month,
and there seemed little or no prospect of Bosinney’s
success.

“And whatever he’ll do I can’t think,”
said Mrs. Baynes; “it’s very dreadful
for him, you know—­he’s got no money—­he’s
very hard up. And we can’t help him, I’m
sure. I’m told the money-lenders won’t
lend if you have no security, and he has none—­none
at all.”

Her embonpoint had increased of late; she was in the
full swing of autumn organization, her writing-table
literally strewn with the menus of charity functions.
She looked meaningly at June, with her round eyes
of parrot-grey.

Page 172

The sudden flush that rose on the girl’s intent
young face—­she must have seen spring up
before her a great hope—­the sudden sweetness
of her smile, often came back to Lady Baynes in after
years (Baynes was knighted when he built that public
Museum of Art which has given so much employment to
officials, and so little pleasure to those working
classes for whom it was designed).

The memory of that change, vivid and touching, like
the breaking open of a flower, or the first sun after
long winter, the memory, too, of all that came after,
often intruded itself, unaccountably, inopportunely
on Lady Baynes, when her mind was set upon the most
important things.

This was the very afternoon of the day that young
Jolyon witnessed the meeting in the Botanical Gardens,
and on this day, too, old Jolyon paid a visit to his
solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard, and Forsyte, in the Poultry.
Soames was not in, he had gone down to Somerset House;
Bustard was buried up to the hilt in papers and that
inaccessible apartment, where he was judiciously placed,
in order that he might do as much work as possible;
but James was in the front office, biting a finger,
and lugubriously turning over the pleadings in Forsyte
v. Bosinney.

This sound lawyer had only a sort of luxurious dread
of the ‘nice point,’ enough to set up
a pleasurable feeling of fuss; for his good practical
sense told him that if he himself were on the Bench
he would not pay much attention to it. But he
was afraid that this Bosinney would go bankrupt and
Soames would have to find the money after all, and
costs into the bargain. And behind this tangible
dread there was always that intangible trouble, lurking
in the background, intricate, dim, scandalous, like
a bad dream, and of which this action was but an outward
and visible sign.

He raised his head as old Jolyon came in, and muttered:
“How are you, Jolyon? Haven’t seen
you for an age. You’ve been to Switzerland,
they tell me. This young Bosinney, he’s
got himself into a mess. I knew how it would
be!” He held out the papers, regarding his elder
brother with nervous gloom.

Old Jolyon read them in silence, and while he read
them James looked at the floor, biting his fingers
the while.

Old Jolyon pitched them down at last, and they fell
with a thump amongst a mass of affidavits in ‘re
Buncombe, deceased,’ one of the many branches
of that parent and profitable tree, ‘Fryer v.
Forsyte.’

“I don’t know what Soames is about,”
he said, “to make a fuss over a few hundred
pounds. I thought he was a man of property.”

James’ long upper lip twitched angrily; he could
not bear his son to be attacked in such a spot.

“It’s not the money,” he began,
but meeting his brother’s glance, direct, shrewd,
judicial, he stopped.

There was a silence.

“I’ve come in for my Will,” said
old Jolyon at last, tugging at his moustache.

James’ curiosity was roused at once. Perhaps
nothing in this life was more stimulating to him than
a Will; it was the supreme deal with property, the
final inventory of a man’s belongings, the last
word on what he was worth. He sounded the bell.

Page 173

“Bring in Mr. Jolyon’s Will,” he
said to an anxious, dark-haired clerk.

“You going to make some alterations?”
And through his mind there flashed the thought:
‘Now, am I worth as much as he?’

Old Jolyon put the Will in his breast pocket, and
James twisted his long legs regretfully.

“You’ve made some nice purchases lately,
they tell me,” he said.

“I don’t know where you get your information
from,” answered old Jolyon sharply. “When’s
this action coming on? Next month? I can’t
tell what you’ve got in your minds. You
must manage your own affairs; but if you take my advice,
you’ll settle it out of Court. Good-bye!”
With a cold handshake he was gone.

James, his fixed grey-blue eye corkscrewing round
some secret anxious image, began again to bite his
finger.

Old Jolyon took his Will to the offices of the New
Colliery Company, and sat down in the empty Board
Room to read it through. He answered ‘Down-by-the-starn’
Hemmings so tartly when the latter, seeing his Chairman
seated there, entered with the new Superintendent’s
first report, that the Secretary withdrew with regretful
dignity; and sending for the transfer clerk, blew
him up till the poor youth knew not where to look.

It was not—­by George—­as he (Down-by-the-starn)
would have him know, for a whippersnapper of a young
fellow like him, to come down to that office, and
think that he was God Almighty. He (Down-by-the-starn)
had been head of that office for more years than a
boy like him could count, and if he thought that when
he had finished all his work, he could sit there doing
nothing, he did not know him, Hemmings (Down-by-the-starn),
and so forth.

On the other side of the green baize door old Jolyon
sat at the long, mahogany-and-leather board table,
his thick, loose-jointed, tortoiseshell eye-glasses
perched on the bridge of his nose, his gold pencil
moving down the clauses of his Will.

It was a simple affair, for there were none of those
vexatious little legacies and donations to charities,
which fritter away a man’s possessions, and
damage the majestic effect of that little paragraph
in the morning papers accorded to Forsytes who die
with a hundred thousand pounds.

A simple affair. Just a bequest to his son of
twenty thousand, and ’as to the residue of my
property of whatsoever kind whether realty or personalty,
or partaking of the nature of either—­upon
trust to pay the proceeds rents annual produce dividends
or interest thereof and thereon to my said grand-daughter
June Forsyte or her assigns during her life to be
for her sole use and benefit and without, etc...
and from and after her death or decease upon trust
to convey assign transfer or make over the said last-mentioned
lands hereditaments premises trust moneys stocks funds
investments and securities or such as shall then stand
for and represent the same unto such person or persons
whether one or more for such intents purposes and

Page 174

uses and generally in such manner way and form in
all respects as the said June Forsyte notwithstanding
coverture shall by her last Will and Testament or
any writing or writings in the nature of a Will testament
or testamentary disposition to be by her duly made
signed and published direct appoint or make over give
and dispose of the same And in default etc....
Provided always...’ and so on, in seven folios
of brief and simple phraseology.

The Will had been drawn by James in his palmy days.
He had foreseen almost every contingency.

Old Jolyon sat a long time reading this Will; at last
he took half a sheet of paper from the rack, and made
a prolonged pencil note; then buttoning up the Will,
he caused a cab to be called and drove to the offices
of Paramor and Herring, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Jack Herring was dead, but his nephew was still in
the firm, and old Jolyon was closeted with him for
half an hour.

He had kept the hansom, and on coming out, gave the
driver the address—­3, Wistaria Avenue.

He felt a strange, slow satisfaction, as though he
had scored a victory over James and the man of property.
They should not poke their noses into his affairs
any more; he had just cancelled their trusteeships
of his Will; he would take the whole of his business
out of their hands, and put it into the hands of young
Herring, and he would move the business of his Companies
too. If that young Soames were such a man of
property, he would never miss a thousand a year or
so; and under his great white moustache old Jolyon
grimly smiled. He felt that what he was doing
was in the nature of retributive justice, richly deserved.

Slowly, surely, with the secret inner process that
works the destruction of an old tree, the poison of
the wounds to his happiness, his will, his pride,
had corroded the comely edifice of his philosophy.
Life had worn him down on one side, till, like that
family of which he was the head, he had lost balance.

To him, borne northwards towards his son’s house,
the thought of the new disposition of property, which
he had just set in motion, appeared vaguely in the
light of a stroke of punishment, levelled at that family
and that Society, of which James and his son seemed
to him the representatives. He had made a restitution
to young Jolyon, and restitution to young Jolyon satisfied
his secret craving for revenge-revenge against Time,
sorrow, and interference, against all that incalculable
sum of disapproval that had been bestowed by the world
for fifteen years on his only son. It presented
itself as the one possible way of asserting once more
the domination of his will; of forcing James, and
Soames, and the family, and all those hidden masses
of Forsytes—­a great stream rolling against
the single dam of his obstinacy—­to recognise
once and for all that he would be master. It
was sweet to think that at last he was going to make
the boy a richer man by far than that son of James,
that ‘man of property.’ And it was
sweet to give to Jo, for he loved his son.

Page 175

Neither young Jolyon nor his wife were in (young Jolyon
indeed was not back from the Botanical), but the little
maid told him that she expected the master at any
moment:

“He’s always at ’ome to tea, sir,
to play with the children.”

Old Jolyon said he would wait; and sat down patiently
enough in the faded, shabby drawing room, where, now
that the summer chintzes were removed, the old chairs
and sofas revealed all their threadbare deficiencies.
He longed to send for the children; to have them there
beside him, their supple bodies against his knees;
to hear Jolly’s: “Hallo, Gran!”
and see his rush; and feel Holly’s soft little
hand stealing up against his cheek. But he would
not. There was solemnity in what he had come
to do, and until it was over he would not play.
He amused himself by thinking how with two strokes
of his pen he was going to restore the look of caste
so conspicuously absent from everything in that little
house; how he could fill these rooms, or others in
some larger mansion, with triumphs of art from Baple
and Pullbred’s; how he could send little Jolly
to Harrow and Oxford (he no longer had faith in Eton
and Cambridge, for his son had been there); how he
could procure little Holly the best musical instruction,
the child had a remarkable aptitude.

As these visions crowded before him, causing emotion
to swell his heart, he rose, and stood at the window,
looking down into the little walled strip of garden,
where the pear-tree, bare of leaves before its time,
stood with gaunt branches in the slow-gathering mist
of the autumn afternoon. The dog Balthasar,
his tail curled tightly over a piebald, furry back,
was walking at the farther end, sniffing at the plants,
and at intervals placing his leg for support against
the wall.

And old Jolyon mused.

What pleasure was there left but to give? It
was pleasant to give, when you could find one who
would be thankful for what you gave—­one
of your own flesh and blood! There was no such
satisfaction to be had out of giving to those who
did not belong to you, to those who had no claim on
you! Such giving as that was a betrayal of the
individualistic convictions and actions of his life,
of all his enterprise, his labour, and his moderation,
of the great and proud fact that, like tens of thousands
of Forsytes before him, tens of thousands in the present,
tens of thousands in the future, he had always made
his own, and held his own, in the world.

And, while he stood there looking down on the smut-covered
foliage of the laurels, the black-stained grass-plot,
the progress of the dog Balthasar, all the suffering
of the fifteen years during which he had been baulked
of legitimate enjoyment mingled its gall with the sweetness
of the approaching moment.

Young Jolyon came at last, pleased with his work,
and fresh from long hours in the open air. On
hearing that his father was in the drawing room, he
inquired hurriedly whether Mrs. Forsyte was at home,
and being informed that she was not, heaved a sigh
of relief. Then putting his painting materials
carefully in the little coat-closet out of sight, he
went in.

Page 176

With characteristic decision old Jolyon came at once
to the point. “I’ve been altering
my arrangements, Jo,” he said. “You
can cut your coat a bit longer in the future—­I’m
settling a thousand a year on you at once. June
will have fifty thousand at my death; and you the rest.
That dog of yours is spoiling the garden. I
shouldn’t keep a dog, if I were you!”

The dog Balthasar, seated in the centre of the lawn,
was examining his tail.

Young Jolyon looked at the animal, but saw him dimly,
for his eyes were misty.

“Yours won’t come short of a hundred thousand,
my boy,” said old Jolyon; “I thought you’d
better know. I haven’t much longer to live
at my age. I shan’t allude to it again.
How’s your wife? And—­give her
my love.”

Young Jolyon put his hand on his father’s shoulder,
and, as neither spoke, the episode closed.

Having seen his father into a hansom, young Jolyon
came back to the drawing-room and stood, where old
Jolyon had stood, looking down on the little garden.
He tried to realize all that this meant to him, and,
Forsyte that he was, vistas of property were opened
out in his brain; the years of half rations through
which he had passed had not sapped his natural instincts.
In extremely practical form, he thought of travel,
of his wife’s costume, the children’s
education, a pony for Jolly, a thousand things; but
in the midst of all he thought, too, of Bosinney and
his mistress, and the broken song of the thrush.
Joy—­tragedy! Which? Which?

The old past—­the poignant, suffering, passionate,
wonderful past, that no money could buy, that nothing
could restore in all its burning sweetness—­had
come back before him.

When his wife came in he went straight up to her and
took her in his arms; and for a long time he stood
without speaking, his eyes closed, pressing her to
him, while she looked at him with a wondering, adoring,
doubting look in her eyes.

CHAPTER IV

VOYAGE INTO THE INFERNO

The morning after a certain night on which Soames
at last asserted his rights and acted like a man,
he breakfasted alone.

He breakfasted by gaslight, the fog of late November
wrapping the town as in some monstrous blanket till
the trees of the Square even were barely visible from
the dining-room window.

He ate steadily, but at times a sensation as though
he could not swallow attacked him. Had he been
right to yield to his overmastering hunger of the
night before, and break down the resistance which he
had suffered now too long from this woman who was
his lawful and solemnly constituted helpmate?

He was strangely haunted by the recollection of her
face, from before which, to soothe her, he had tried
to pull her hands—­of her terrible smothered
sobbing, the like of which he had never heard, and
still seemed to hear; and he was still haunted by
the odd, intolerable feeling of remorse and shame
he had felt, as he stood looking at her by the flame
of the single candle, before silently slinking away.

Page 177

And somehow, now that he had acted like this, he was
surprised at himself.

Two nights before, at Winifred Dartie’s, he
had taken Mrs. MacAnder into dinner. She had
said to him, looking in his face with her sharp, greenish
eyes: “And so your wife is a great friend
of that Mr. Bosinney’s?”

Not deigning to ask what she meant, he had brooded
over her words.

They had roused in him a fierce jealousy, which, with
the peculiar perversion of this instinct, had turned
to fiercer desire.

Without the incentive of Mrs. MacAnder’s words
he might never have done what he had done. Without
their incentive and the accident of finding his wife’s
door for once unlocked, which had enabled him to steal
upon her asleep.

Slumber had removed his doubts, but the morning brought
them again. One thought comforted him:
No one would know—­it was not the sort of
thing that she would speak about.

And, indeed, when the vehicle of his daily business
life, which needed so imperatively the grease of clear
and practical thought, started rolling once more with
the reading of his letters, those nightmare-like doubts
began to assume less extravagant importance at the
back of his mind. The incident was really not
of great moment; women made a fuss about it in books;
but in the cool judgment of right-thinking men, of
men of the world, of such as he recollected often
received praise in the Divorce Court, he had but done
his best to sustain the sanctity of marriage, to prevent
her from abandoning her duty, possibly, if she were
still seeing Bosinney, from....

No, he did not regret it.

Now that the first step towards reconciliation had
been taken, the rest would be comparatively—­comparatively....

He, rose and walked to the window. His nerve
had been shaken. The sound of smothered sobbing
was in his ears again. He could not get rid of
it.

He put on his fur coat, and went out into the fog;
having to go into the City, he took the underground
railway from Sloane Square station.

In his corner of the first-class compartment filled
with City men the smothered sobbing still haunted
him, so he opened the Times with the rich crackle
that drowns all lesser sounds, and, barricaded behind
it, set himself steadily to con the news.

He read that a Recorder had charged a grand jury on
the previous day with a more than usually long list
of offences. He read of three murders, five
manslaughters, seven arsons, and as many as eleven
rapes—­a surprisingly high number—­in
addition to many less conspicuous crimes, to be tried
during a coming Sessions; and from one piece of news
he went on to another, keeping the paper well before
his face.

And still, inseparable from his reading, was the memory
of Irene’s tear-stained face, and the sounds
from her broken heart.

The day was a busy one, including, in addition to
the ordinary affairs of his practice, a visit to his
brokers, Messrs. Grin and Grinning, to give them instructions
to sell his shares in the New Colliery Co., Ltd., whose
business he suspected, rather than knew, was stagnating
(this enterprise afterwards slowly declined, and was
ultimately sold for a song to an American syndicate);
and a long conference at Waterbuck, Q.C.’s chambers,
attended by Boulter, by Fiske, the junior counsel,
and Waterbuck, Q.C., himself.

Page 178

The case of Forsyte v. Bosinney was expected
to be reached on the morrow, before Mr. Justice Bentham.

Mr. Justice Bentham, a man of common-sense rather
than too great legal knowledge, was considered to
be about the best man they could have to try the action.
He was a ‘strong’ Judge.

Waterbuck, Q.C., in pleasing conjunction with an almost
rude neglect of Boulter and Fiske paid to Soames a
good deal of attention, by instinct or the sounder
evidence of rumour, feeling him to be a man of property.

He held with remarkable consistency to the opinion
he had already expressed in writing, that the issue
would depend to a great extent on the evidence given
at the trial, and in a few well directed remarks he
advised Soames not to be too careful in giving that
evidence. “A little bluffness, Mr. Forsyte,”
he said, “a little bluffness,” and after
he had spoken he laughed firmly, closed his lips tight,
and scratched his head just below where he had pushed
his wig back, for all the world like the gentleman-farmer
for whom he loved to be taken. He was considered
perhaps the leading man in breach of promise cases.

Soames used the underground again in going home.

The fog was worse than ever at Sloane Square station.
Through the still, thick blur, men groped in and
out; women, very few, grasped their reticules to their
bosoms and handkerchiefs to their mouths; crowned with
the weird excrescence of the driver, haloed by a vague
glow of lamp-light that seemed to drown in vapour
before it reached the pavement, cabs loomed dim-shaped
ever and again, and discharged citizens, bolting like
rabbits to their burrows.

And these shadowy figures, wrapped each in his own
little shroud of fog, took no notice of each other.
In the great warren, each rabbit for himself, especially
those clothed in the more expensive fur, who, afraid
of carriages on foggy days, are driven underground.

One figure, however, not far from Soames, waited at
the station door.

Some buccaneer or lover, of whom each Forsyte thought:
’Poor devil! looks as if he were having a bad
time!’ Their kind hearts beat a stroke faster
for that poor, waiting, anxious lover in the fog; but
they hurried by, well knowing that they had neither
time nor money to spare for any suffering but their
own.

Only a policeman, patrolling slowly and at intervals,
took an interest in that waiting figure, the brim
of whose slouch hat half hid a face reddened by the
cold, all thin, and haggard, over which a hand stole
now and again to smooth away anxiety, or renew the
resolution that kept him waiting there. But
the waiting lover (if lover he were) was used to policemen’s
scrutiny, or too absorbed in his anxiety, for he never
flinched. A hardened case, accustomed to long
trysts, to anxiety, and fog, and cold, if only his
mistress came at last. Foolish lover! Fogs
last until the spring; there is also snow and rain,
no comfort anywhere; gnawing fear if you bring her
out, gnawing fear if you bid her stay at home!

Page 179

“Serve him right; he should arrange his affairs
better!”

So any respectable Forsyte. Yet, if that sounder
citizen could have listened at the waiting lover’s
heart, out there in the fog and the cold, he would
have said again: “Yes, poor devil he’s
having a bad time!”

Soames got into his cab, and, with the glass down,
crept along Sloane Street, and so along the Brompton
Road, and home. He reached his house at five.

His wife was not in. She had gone out a quarter
of an hour before. Out at such a time of night,
into this terrible fog! What was the meaning of
that?

He sat by the dining-room fire, with the door open,
disturbed to the soul, trying to read the evening
paper. A book was no good—­in daily
papers alone was any narcotic to such worry as his.
From the customary events recorded in the journal
he drew some comfort. ’Suicide of an actress’—­’Grave
indisposition of a Statesman’ (that chronic
sufferer)—­’Divorce of an army officer’—­’Fire
in a colliery’—­he read them all.
They helped him a little—­prescribed by
the greatest of all doctors, our natural taste.

It was nearly seven when he heard her come in.

The incident of the night before had long lost its
importance under stress of anxiety at her strange
sortie into the fog. But now that Irene was
home, the memory of her broken-hearted sobbing came
back to him, and he felt nervous at the thought of
facing her.

She was already on the stairs; her grey fur coat hung
to her knees, its high collar almost hid her face,
she wore a thick veil.

She neither turned to look at him nor spoke.
No ghost or stranger could have passed more silently.

Bilson came to lay dinner, and told him that Mrs.
Forsyte was not coming down; she was having the soup
in her room.

For once Soames did not ‘change’; it was,
perhaps, the first time in his life that he had sat
down to dinner with soiled cuffs, and, not even noticing
them, he brooded long over his wine. He sent
Bilson to light a fire in his picture-room, and presently
went up there himself.

Turning on the gas, he heaved a deep sigh, as though
amongst these treasures, the backs of which confronted
him in stacks, around the little room, he had found
at length his peace of mind. He went straight
up to the greatest treasure of them all, an undoubted
Turner, and, carrying it to the easel, turned its
face to the light. There had been a movement
in Turners, but he had not been able to make up his
mind to part with it. He stood for a long time,
his pale, clean-shaven face poked forward above his
stand-up collar, looking at the picture as though he
were adding it up; a wistful expression came into
his eyes; he found, perhaps, that it came to too little.
He took it down from the easel to put it back against
the wall; but, in crossing the room, stopped, for he
seemed to hear sobbing.

It was nothing—­only the sort of thing that
had been bothering him in the morning. And soon
after, putting the high guard before the blazing fire,
he stole downstairs.

Page 180

Fresh for the morrow! was his thought. It was
long before he went to sleep....

It is now to George Forsyte that the mind must turn
for light on the events of that fog-engulfed afternoon.

The wittiest and most sportsmanlike of the Forsytes
had passed the day reading a novel in the paternal
mansion at Princes’ Gardens. Since a recent
crisis in his financial affairs he had been kept on
parole by Roger, and compelled to reside ‘at
home.’

Towards five o’clock he went out, and took train
at South Kensington Station (for everyone to-day went
Underground). His intention was to dine, and
pass the evening playing billiards at the Red Pottle—­that
unique hostel, neither club, hotel, nor good gilt restaurant.

He got out at Charing Cross, choosing it in preference
to his more usual St. James’s Park, that he
might reach Jermyn Street by better lighted ways.

On the platform his eyes—­for in combination
with a composed and fashionable appearance, George
had sharp eyes, and was always on the look-out for
fillips to his sardonic humour—­his eyes
were attracted by a man, who, leaping from a first-class
compartment, staggered rather than walked towards
the exit.

‘So ho, my bird!’ said George to himself;
‘why, it’s “the Buccaneer!"’
and he put his big figure on the trail. Nothing
afforded him greater amusement than a drunken man.

Bosinney, who wore a slouch hat, stopped in front
of him, spun around, and rushed back towards the carriage
he had just left. He was too late. A porter
caught him by the coat; the train was already moving
on.

George’s practised glance caught sight of the
face of a lady clad in a grey fur coat at the carriage
window. It was Mrs. Soames—­and George
felt that this was interesting!

And now he followed Bosinney more closely than ever—­up
the stairs, past the ticket collector into the street.
In that progress, however, his feelings underwent
a change; no longer merely curious and amused, he felt
sorry for the poor fellow he was shadowing. ‘The
Buccaneer’ was not drunk, but seemed to be acting
under the stress of violent emotion; he was talking
to himself, and all that George could catch were the
words “Oh, God!” Nor did he appear to
know what he was doing, or where going; but stared,
hesitated, moved like a man out of his mind; and from
being merely a joker in search of amusement, George
felt that he must see the poor chap through.

He had ‘taken the knock’—­’taken
the knock!’ And he wondered what on earth Mrs.
Soames had been saying, what on earth she had been
telling him in the railway carriage. She had
looked bad enough herself! It made George sorry
to think of her travelling on with her trouble all
alone.

He followed close behind Bosinney’s elbow—­tall,
burly figure, saying nothing, dodging warily—­and
shadowed him out into the fog.

There was something here beyond a jest! He kept
his head admirably, in spite of some excitement, for
in addition to compassion, the instincts of the chase
were roused within him.

Page 181

Bosinney walked right out into the thoroughfare—­a
vast muffled blackness, where a man could not see
six paces before him; where, all around, voices or
whistles mocked the sense of direction; and sudden
shapes came rolling slow upon them; and now and then
a light showed like a dim island in an infinite dark
sea.

And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosinney,
and fast after him walked George. If the fellow
meant to put his ‘twopenny’ under a ’bus,
he would stop it if he could! Across the street
and back the hunted creature strode, not groping as
other men were groping in that gloom, but driven forward
as though the faithful George behind wielded a knout;
and this chase after a haunted man began to have for
George the strangest fascination.

But it was now that the affair developed in a way
which ever afterwards caused it to remain green in
his mind. Brought to a stand-still in the fog,
he heard words which threw a sudden light on these
proceedings. What Mrs. Soames had said to Bosinney
in the train was now no longer dark. George
understood from those mutterings that Soames had exercised
his rights over an estranged and unwilling wife in
the greatest—­the supreme act of property.

His fancy wandered in the fields of this situation;
it impressed him; he guessed something of the anguish,
the sexual confusion and horror in Bosinney’s
heart. And he thought: ’Yes, it’s
a bit thick! I don’t wonder the poor fellow
is half-cracked!’

He had run his quarry to earth on a bench under one
of the lions in Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx
astray like themselves in that gulf of darkness.
Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosinney, and George,
in whose patience was a touch of strange brotherliness,
took his stand behind. He was not lacking in
a certain delicacy—­a sense of form—­that
did not permit him to intrude upon this tragedy, and
he waited, quiet as the lion above, his fur collar
hitched above his ears concealing the fleshy redness
of his cheeks, concealing all but his eyes with their
sardonic, compassionate stare. And men kept
passing back from business on the way to their clubs—­men
whose figures shrouded in cocoons of fog came into
view like spectres, and like spectres vanished.
Then even in his compassion George’s Quilpish
humour broke forth in a sudden longing to pluck these
spectres by the sleeve, and say:

“Hi, you Johnnies! You don’t often
see a show like this! Here’s a poor devil
whose mistress has just been telling him a pretty little
story of her husband; walk up, walk up! He’s
taken the knock, you see.”

In fancy he saw them gaping round the tortured lover;
and grinned as he thought of some respectable, newly-married
spectre enabled by the state of his own affections
to catch an inkling of what was going on within Bosinney;
he fancied he could see his mouth getting wider and
wider, and the fog going down and down. For
in George was all that contempt of the of the married
middle-class—­peculiar to the wild and sportsmanlike
spirits in its ranks.

Page 182

But he began to be bored. Waiting was not what
he had bargained for.

‘After all,’ he thought, ’the poor
chap will get over it; not the first time such a thing
has happened in this little city!’ But now his
quarry again began muttering words of violent hate
and anger. And following a sudden impulse George
touched him on the shoulder.

Bosinney spun round.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

George could have stood it well enough in the light
of the gas lamps, in the light of that everyday world
of which he was so hardy a connoisseur; but in this
fog, where all was gloomy and unreal, where nothing
had that matter-of-fact value associated by Forsytes
with earth, he was a victim to strange qualms, and
as he tried to stare back into the eyes of this maniac,
he thought:

‘If I see a bobby, I’ll hand him over;
he’s not fit to be at large.’

But waiting for no answer, Bosinney strode off into
the fog, and George followed, keeping perhaps a little
further off, yet more than ever set on tracking him
down.

‘He can’t go on long like this,’
he thought. ’It’s God’s own
miracle he’s not been run over already.’
He brooded no more on policemen, a sportsman’s
sacred fire alive again within him.

Into a denser gloom than ever Bosinney held on at
a furious pace; but his pursuer perceived more method
in his madness—­he was clearly making his
way westwards.

‘He’s really going for Soames!’
thought George. The idea was attractive.
It would be a sporting end to such a chase. He
had always disliked his cousin.

The shaft of a passing cab brushed against his shoulder
and made him leap aside. He did not intend to
be killed for the Buccaneer, or anyone. Yet,
with hereditary tenacity, he stuck to the trail through
vapour that blotted out everything but the shadow
of the hunted man and the dim moon of the nearest
lamp.

Then suddenly, with the instinct of a town-stroller,
George knew himself to be in Piccadilly. Here
he could find his way blindfold; and freed from the
strain of geographical uncertainty, his mind returned
to Bosinney’s trouble.

Down the long avenue of his man-about-town experience,
bursting, as it were, through a smirch of doubtful
amours, there stalked to him a memory of his youth.
A memory, poignant still, that brought the scent of
hay, the gleam of moonlight, a summer magic, into
the reek and blackness of this London fog—­the
memory of a night when in the darkest shadow of a
lawn he had overheard from a woman’s lips that
he was not her sole possessor. And for a moment
George walked no longer in black Piccadilly, but lay
again, with hell in his heart, and his face to the
sweet-smelling, dewy grass, in the long shadow of poplars
that hid the moon.

A longing seized him to throw his arm round the Buccaneer,
and say, “Come, old boy. Time cures all.
Let’s go and drink it off!”

But a voice yelled at him, and he started back.
A cab rolled out of blackness, and into blackness
disappeared. And suddenly George perceived that
he had lost Bosinney. He ran forward and back,
felt his heart clutched by a sickening fear, the dark
fear which lives in the wings of the fog. Perspiration
started out on his brow. He stood quite still,
listening with all his might.

Page 183

“And then,” as he confided to Dartie the
same evening in the course of a game of billiards
at the Red Pottle, “I lost him.”

Dartie twirled complacently at his dark moustache.
He had just put together a neat break of twenty-three,—­failing
at a ‘Jenny.’ “And who was
she?” he asked.

George looked slowly at the ‘man of the world’s’
fattish, sallow face, and a little grim smile lurked
about the curves of his cheeks and his heavy-lidded
eyes.

‘No, no, my fine fellow,’ he thought,
‘I’m not going to tell you.’
For though he mixed with Dartie a good deal, he thought
him a bit of a cad.

“Oh, some little love-lady or other,”
he said, and chalked his cue.

“A love-lady!” exclaimed Dartie—­he
used a more figurative expression. “I made
sure it was our friend Soa....”

“Did you?” said George curtly. “Then
damme you’ve made an error.”

He missed his shot. He was careful not to allude
to the subject again till, towards eleven o’clock,
having, in his poetic phraseology, ’looked upon
the drink when it was yellow,’ he drew aside
the blind, and gazed out into the street. The
murky blackness of the fog was but faintly broken
by the lamps of the ‘Red Pottle,’ and no
shape of mortal man or thing was in sight.

“I can’t help thinking of that poor Buccaneer,”
he said. “He may be wandering out there
now in that fog. If he’s not a corpse,”
he added with strange dejection.

“Corpse!” said Dartie, in whom the recollection
of his defeat at Richmond flared up. “He’s
all right. Ten to one if he wasn’t tight!”

George turned on him, looking really formidable, with
a sort of savage gloom on his big face.

“Dry up!” he said. “Don’t
I tell you he’s ‘taken the knock!"’

CHAPTER V

THE TRIAL

In the morning of his case, which was second in the
list, Soames was again obliged to start without seeing
Irene, and it was just as well, for he had not as
yet made up his mind what attitude to adopt towards
her.

He had been requested to be in court by half-past
ten, to provide against the event of the first action
(a breach of promise) collapsing, which however it
did not, both sides showing a courage that afforded
Waterbuck, Q.C., an opportunity for improving his
already great reputation in this class of case.
He was opposed by Ram, the other celebrated breach
of promise man. It was a battle of giants.

The court delivered judgment just before the luncheon
interval. The jury left the box for good, and
Soames went out to get something to eat. He
met James standing at the little luncheon-bar, like
a pelican in the wilderness of the galleries, bent
over a sandwich with a glass of sherry before him.
The spacious emptiness of the great central hall,
over which father and son brooded as they stood together,
was marred now and then for a fleeting moment by barristers

Page 184

in wig and gown hurriedly bolting across, by an occasional
old lady or rusty-coated man, looking up in a frightened
way, and by two persons, bolder than their generation,
seated in an embrasure arguing. The sound of
their voices arose, together with a scent as of neglected
wells, which, mingling with the odour of the galleries,
combined to form the savour, like nothing but the emanation
of a refined cheese, so indissolubly connected with
the administration of British Justice.

It was not long before James addressed his son.

“When’s your case coming on? I suppose
it’ll be on directly. I shouldn’t
wonder if this Bosinney’d say anything; I should
think he’d have to. He’ll go bankrupt
if it goes against him.” He took a large
bite at his sandwich and a mouthful of sherry.
“Your mother,” he said, “wants
you and Irene to come and dine to-night.”

A chill smile played round Soames’ lips; he
looked back at his father. Anyone who had seen
the look, cold and furtive, thus interchanged, might
have been pardoned for not appreciating the real understanding
between them. James finished his sherry at a
draught.

“How much?” he asked.

On returning to the court Soames took at once his
rightful seat on the front bench beside his solicitor.
He ascertained where his father was seated with a
glance so sidelong as to commit nobody.

James, sitting back with his hands clasped over the
handle of his umbrella, was brooding on the end of
the bench immediately behind counsel, whence he could
get away at once when the case was over. He considered
Bosinney’s conduct in every way outrageous, but
he did not wish to run up against him, feeling that
the meeting would be awkward.

Next to the Divorce Court, this court was, perhaps,
the favourite emporium of justice, libel, breach of
promise, and other commercial actions being frequently
decided there. Quite a sprinkling of persons
unconnected with the law occupied the back benches,
and the hat of a woman or two could be seen in the
gallery.

The two rows of seats immediately in front of James
were gradually filled by barristers in wigs, who sat
down to make pencil notes, chat, and attend to their
teeth; but his interest was soon diverted from these
lesser lights of justice by the entrance of Waterbuck,
Q.C., with the wings of his silk gown rustling, and
his red, capable face supported by two short, brown
whiskers. The famous Q.C. looked, as James freely
admitted, the very picture of a man who could heckle
a witness.

For all his experience, it so happened that he had
never seen Waterbuck, Q.C., before, and, like many
Forsytes in the lower branch of the profession, he
had an extreme admiration for a good cross-examiner.
The long, lugubrious folds in his cheeks relaxed
somewhat after seeing him, especially as he now perceived
that Soames alone was represented by silk.

Page 185

Waterbuck, Q.C., had barely screwed round on his elbow
to chat with his Junior before Mr. Justice Bentham
himself appeared—­a thin, rather hen-like
man, with a little stoop, clean-shaven under his snowy
wig. Like all the rest of the court, Waterbuck
rose, and remained on his feet until the judge was
seated. James rose but slightly; he was already
comfortable, and had no opinion of Bentham, having
sat next but one to him at dinner twice at the Bumley
Tomms’. Bumley Tomm was rather a poor
thing, though he had been so successful. James
himself had given him his first brief. He was
excited, too, for he had just found out that Bosinney
was not in court.

‘Now, what’s he mean by that?’ he
kept on thinking.

The case having been called on, Waterbuck, Q.C., pushing
back his papers, hitched his gown on his shoulder,
and, with a semi-circular look around him, like a
man who is going to bat, arose and addressed the Court.

The facts, he said, were not in dispute, and all that
his Lordship would be asked was to interpret the correspondence
which had taken place between his client and the defendant,
an architect, with reference to the decoration of
a house. He would, however, submit that this
correspondence could only mean one very plain thing.
After briefly reciting the history of the house at
Robin Hill, which he described as a mansion, and the
actual facts of expenditure, he went on as follows:

“My client, Mr. Soames Forsyte, is a gentleman,
a man of property, who would be the last to dispute
any legitimate claim that might be made against him,
but he has met with such treatment from his architect
in the matter of this house, over which he has, as
your lordship has heard, already spent some twelve—­some
twelve thousand pounds, a sum considerably in advance
of the amount he had originally contemplated, that
as a matter of principle—­and this I cannot
too strongly emphasize—­as a matter of principle,
and in the interests of others, he has felt himself
compelled to bring this action. The point put
forward in defence by the architect I will suggest
to your lordship is not worthy of a moment’s
serious consideration.” He then read the
correspondence.

His client, “a man of recognised position,”
was prepared to go into the box, and to swear that
he never did authorize, that it was never in his mind
to authorize, the expenditure of any money beyond the
extreme limit of twelve thousand and fifty pounds,
which he had clearly fixed; and not further to waste
the time of the court, he would at once call Mr. Forsyte.

Soames then went into the box. His whole appearance
was striking in its composure. His face, just
supercilious enough, pale and clean-shaven, with a
little line between the eyes, and compressed lips;
his dress in unostentatious order, one hand neatly
gloved, the other bare. He answered the questions
put to him in a somewhat low, but distinct voice.
His evidence under cross-examination savoured of taciturnity.

Page 186

Had he not used the expression, “a free hand”?
No.

“Come, come!”

The expression he had used was ’a free hand
in the terms of this correspondence.’

“Would you tell the Court that that was English?”

“Yes!”

“What do you say it means?”

“What it says!”

“Are you prepared to deny that it is a contradiction
in terms?”

“Yes.”

“You are not an Irishman?”

“No.”

“Are you a well-educated man?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you persist in that statement?”

“Yes.”

Throughout this and much more cross-examination, which
turned again and again around the ‘nice point,’
James sat with his hand behind his ear, his eyes fixed
upon his son.

He was proud of him! He could not but feel that
in similar circumstances he himself would have been
tempted to enlarge his replies, but his instinct told
him that this taciturnity was the very thing.
He sighed with relief, however, when Soames, slowly
turning, and without any change of expression, descended
from the box.

When it came to the turn of Bosinney’s Counsel
to address the Judge, James redoubled his attention,
and he searched the Court again and again to see if
Bosinney were not somewhere concealed.

Young Chankery began nervously; he was placed by Bosinney’s
absence in an awkward position. He therefore
did his best to turn that absence to account.

He could not but fear—­he said—­that
his client had met with an accident. He had fully
expected him there to give evidence; they had sent
round that morning both to Mr. Bosinney’s office
and to his rooms (though he knew they were one and
the same, he thought it was as well not to say so),
but it was not known where he was, and this he considered
to be ominous, knowing how anxious Mr. Bosinney had
been to give his evidence. He had not, however,
been instructed to apply for an adjournment, and in
default of such instruction he conceived it his duty
to go on. The plea on which he somewhat confidently
relied, and which his client, had he not unfortunately
been prevented in some way from attending, would have
supported by his evidence, was that such an expression
as a ‘free hand’ could not be limited,
fettered, and rendered unmeaning, by any verbiage
which might follow it. He would go further and
say that the correspondence showed that whatever he
might have said in his evidence, Mr. Forsyte had in
fact never contemplated repudiating liability on any
of the work ordered or executed by his architect.
The defendant had certainly never contemplated such
a contingency, or, as was demonstrated by his letters,
he would never have proceeded with the work—­a
work of extreme delicacy, carried out with great care
and efficiency, to meet and satisfy the fastidious
taste of a connoisseur, a rich man, a man of property.
He felt strongly on this point, and feeling strongly

Page 187

he used, perhaps, rather strong words when he said
that this action was of a most unjustifiable, unexpected,
indeed—­unprecedented character. If
his Lordship had had the opportunity that he himself
had made it his duty to take, to go over this very
fine house and see the great delicacy and beauty of
the decorations executed by his client—­an
artist in his most honourable profession—­he
felt convinced that not for one moment would his Lordship
tolerate this, he would use no stronger word than daring
attempt to evade legitimate responsibility.

Taking the text of Soames’ letters, he lightly
touched on ’Boileau v. The Blasted Cement
Company, Limited.’ “It is doubtful,”
he said, “what that authority has decided; in
any case I would submit that it is just as much in
my favour as in my friend’s.” He
then argued the ‘nice point’ closely.
With all due deference he submitted that Mr. Forsyte’s
expression nullified itself. His client not being
a rich man, the matter was a serious one for him;
he was a very talented architect, whose professional
reputation was undoubtedly somewhat at stake.
He concluded with a perhaps too personal appeal to
the Judge, as a lover of the arts, to show himself
the protector of artists, from what was occasionally—­he
said occasionally—­the too iron hand of capital.
“What,” he said, “will be the position
of the artistic professions, if men of property like
this Mr. Forsyte refuse, and are allowed to refuse,
to carry out the obligations of the commissions which
they have given.” He would now call his
client, in case he should at the last moment have found
himself able to be present.

The name Philip Baynes Bosinney was called three times
by the Ushers, and the sound of the calling echoed
with strange melancholy throughout the Court and Galleries.

The crying of this name, to which no answer was returned,
had upon James a curious effect: it was like
calling for your lost dog about the streets.
And the creepy feeling that it gave him, of a man
missing, grated on his sense of comfort and security-on
his cosiness. Though he could not have said
why, it made him feel uneasy.

He looked now at the clock—­a quarter to
three! It would be all over in a quarter of
an hour. Where could the young fellow be?

It was only when Mr. Justice Bentham delivered judgment
that he got over the turn he had received.

Behind the wooden erection, by which he was fenced
from more ordinary mortals, the learned Judge leaned
forward. The electric light, just turned on
above his head, fell on his face, and mellowed it to
an orange hue beneath the snowy crown of his wig;
the amplitude of his robes grew before the eye; his
whole figure, facing the comparative dusk of the Court,
radiated like some majestic and sacred body.
He cleared his throat, took a sip of water, broke
the nib of a quill against the desk, and, folding
his bony hands before him, began.

To James he suddenly loomed much larger than he had
ever thought Bentham would loom. It was the
majesty of the law; and a person endowed with a nature
far less matter-of-fact than that of James might have
been excused for failing to pierce this halo, and
disinter therefrom the somewhat ordinary Forsyte,
who walked and talked in every-day life under the name
of Sir Walter Bentham.

Page 188

He delivered judgment in the following words:

“The facts in this case are not in dispute.
On May 15 last the defendant wrote to the plaintiff,
requesting to be allowed to withdraw from his professional
position in regard to the decoration of the plaintiff’s
house, unless he were given ‘a free hand.’
The plaintiff, on May 17, wrote back as follows:
’In giving you, in accordance with your request,
this free hand, I wish you to clearly understand that
the total cost of the house as handed over to me completely
decorated, inclusive of your fee (as arranged between
us) must not exceed twelve thousand pounds.’
To this letter the defendant replied on May 18:
’If you think that in such a delicate matter
as decoration I can bind myself to the exact pound,
I am afraid you are mistaken.’ On May
19 the plaintiff wrote as follows: ’I did
not mean to say that if you should exceed the sum named
in my letter to you by ten or twenty or even fifty
pounds there would be any difficulty between us.
You have a free hand in the terms of this correspondence,
and I hope you will see your way to completing the
decorations.’ On May 20 the defendant replied
thus shortly: ‘Very well.’

“In completing these decorations, the defendant
incurred liabilities and expenses which brought the
total cost of this house up to the sum of twelve thousand
four hundred pounds, all of which expenditure has been
defrayed by the plaintiff. This action has been
brought by the plaintiff to recover from the defendant
the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds expended
by him in excess of a sum of twelve thousand and fifty
pounds, alleged by the plaintiff to have been fixed
by this correspondence as the maximum sum that the
defendant had authority to expend.

“The question for me to decide is whether or
no the defendant is liable to refund to the plaintiff
this sum. In my judgment he is so liable.

“What in effect the plaintiff has said is this
’I give you a free hand to complete these decorations,
provided that you keep within a total cost to me of
twelve thousand pounds. If you exceed that sum
by as much as fifty pounds, I will not hold you responsible;
beyond that point you are no agent of mine, and I
shall repudiate liability.’ It is not quite
clear to me whether, had the plaintiff in fact repudiated
liability under his agent’s contracts, he would,
under all the circumstances, have been successful
in so doing; but he has not adopted this course.
He has accepted liability, and fallen back upon his
rights against the defendant under the terms of the
latter’s engagement.

“In my judgment the plaintiff is entitled to
recover this sum from the defendant.

“It has been sought, on behalf of the defendant,
to show that no limit of expenditure was fixed or
intended to be fixed by this correspondence.
If this were so, I can find no reason for the plaintiff’s
importation into the correspondence of the figures
of twelve thousand pounds and subsequently of fifty
pounds. The defendant’s contention would
render these figures meaningless. It is manifest
to me that by his letter of May 20 he assented to
a very clear proposition, by the terms of which he
must be held to be bound.

Page 189

“For these reasons there will be judgment for
the plaintiff for the amount claimed with costs.”

James sighed, and stooping, picked up his umbrella
which had fallen with a rattle at the words ‘importation
into this correspondence.’

Untangling his legs, he rapidly left the Court; without
waiting for his son, he snapped up a hansom cab (it
was a clear, grey afternoon) and drove straight to
Timothy’s where he found Swithin; and to him,
Mrs. Septimus Small, and Aunt Hester, he recounted
the whole proceedings, eating two muffins not altogether
in the intervals of speech.

“Soames did very well,” he ended; “he’s
got his head screwed on the right way. This
won’t please Jolyon. It’s a bad business
for that young Bosinney; he’ll go bankrupt,
I shouldn’t wonder,” and then after a long
pause, during which he had stared disquietly into the
fire, he added:

“He wasn’t there—­now why?”

There was a sound of footsteps. The figure of
a thick-set man, with the ruddy brown face of robust
health, was seen in the back drawing-room. The
forefinger of his upraised hand was outlined against
the black of his frock coat. He spoke in a grudging
voice.

James rose from his chair. “There!”
he said, “there! I knew there was something
wro....” He checked himself, and was silent,
staring before him, as though he had seen a portent.

CHAPTER VI

SOAMES BREAKS THE NEWS

In leaving the Court Soames did not go straight home.
He felt disinclined for the City, and drawn by need
for sympathy in his triumph, he, too, made his way,
but slowly and on foot, to Timothy’s in the
Bayswater Road.

His father had just left; Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester,
in possession of the whole story, greeted him warmly.
They were sure he was hungry after all that evidence.
Smither should toast him some more muffins, his dear
father had eaten them all. He must put his legs
up on the sofa; and he must have a glass of prune
brandy too. It was so strengthening.

Swithin was still present, having lingered later than
his wont, for he felt in want of exercise. On
hearing this suggestion, he ‘pished.’
A pretty pass young men were coming to! His
own liver was out of order, and he could not bear
the thought of anyone else drinking prune brandy.

He went away almost immediately, saying to Soames:
“And how’s your wife? You tell her
from me that if she’s dull, and likes to come
and dine with me quietly, I’ll give her such
a bottle of champagne as she doesn’t get every
day.” Staring down from his height on Soames
he contracted his thick, puffy, yellow hand as though
squeezing within it all this small fry, and throwing
out his chest he waddled slowly away.

Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester were left horrified.
Swithin was so droll!

Page 190

They themselves were longing to ask Soames how Irene
would take the result, yet knew that they must not;
he would perhaps say something of his own accord,
to throw some light on this, the present burning question
in their lives, the question that from necessity of
silence tortured them almost beyond bearing; for even
Timothy had now been told, and the effect on his health
was little short of alarming. And what, too,
would June do? This, also, was a most exciting,
if dangerous speculation!

They had never forgotten old Jolyon’s visit,
since when he had not once been to see them; they
had never forgotten the feeling it gave all who were
present, that the family was no longer what it had
been—­that the family was breaking up.

But Soames gave them no help, sitting with his knees
crossed, talking of the Barbizon school of painters,
whom he had just discovered. These were the
coming men, he said; he should not wonder if a lot
of money were made over them; he had his eye on two
pictures by a man called Corot, charming things; if
he could get them at a reasonable price he was going
to buy them—­they would, he thought, fetch
a big price some day.

Interested as they could not but be, neither Mrs.
Septimus Small nor Aunt Hester could entirely acquiesce
in being thus put off.

It was interesting—­most interesting—­and
then Soames was so clever that they were sure he would
do something with those pictures if anybody could;
but what was his plan now that he had won his case;
was he going to leave London at once, and live in
the country, or what was he going to do?

Soames answered that he did not know, he thought they
should be moving soon. He rose and kissed his
aunts.

No sooner had Aunt Juley received this emblem of departure
than a change came over her, as though she were being
visited by dreadful courage; every little roll of
flesh on her face seemed trying to escape from an
invisible, confining mask.

She rose to the full extent of her more than medium
height, and said: “It has been on my mind
a long time, dear, and if nobody else will tell you,
I have made up my mind that....”

Mrs. Small went on as though she had not heard:
“I think you ought to know, dear, that Mrs.
MacAnder saw Irene walking in Richmond Park with Mr.
Bosinney.”

Aunt Hester, who had also risen, sank back in her
chair, and turned her face away. Really Juley
was too—­she should not do such things when
she—­Aunt Hester, was in the room; and, breathless
with anticipation, she waited for what Soames would
answer.

He had flushed the peculiar flush which always centred
between his eyes; lifting his hand, and, as it were,
selecting a finger, he bit a nail delicately; then,
drawling it out between set lips, he said: “Mrs.
MacAnder is a cat!”

Without waiting for any reply, he left the room.

Page 191

When he went into Timothy’s he had made up his
mind what course to pursue on getting home.
He would go up to Irene and say:

“Well, I’ve won my case, and there’s
an end of it! I don’t want to be hard
on Bosinney; I’ll see if we can’t come
to some arrangement; he shan’t be pressed.
And now let’s turn over a new leaf! We’ll
let the house, and get out of these fogs. We’ll
go down to Robin Hill at once. I—­I
never meant to be rough with you! Let’s
shake hands—­and—­” Perhaps
she would let him kiss her, and forget!

When he came out of Timothy’s his intentions
were no longer so simple. The smouldering jealousy
and suspicion of months blazed up within him.
He would put an end to that sort of thing once and
for all; he would not have her drag his name in the
dirt! If she could not or would not love him,
as was her duty and his right—­she should
not play him tricks with anyone else! He would
tax her with it; threaten to divorce her! That
would make her behave; she would never face that.
But—­but—­what if she did?
He was staggered; this had not occurred to him.

What if she did? What if she made him a confession?
How would he stand then? He would have to bring
a divorce!

A divorce! Thus close, the word was paralyzing,
so utterly at variance with all the principles that
had hitherto guided his life. Its lack of compromise
appalled him; he felt—­like the captain of
a ship, going to the side of his vessel, and, with
his own hands throwing over the most precious of his
bales. This jettisoning of his property with
his own hand seemed uncanny to Soames. It would
injure him in his profession: He would have to
get rid of the house at Robin Hill, on which he had
spent so much money, so much anticipation—­and
at a sacrifice. And she! She would no
longer belong to him, not even in name! She would
pass out of his life, and he—­he should
never see her again!

He traversed in the cab the length of a street without
getting beyond the thought that he should never see
her again!

But perhaps there was nothing to confess, even now
very likely there was nothing to confess. Was
it wise to push things so far? Was it wise to
put himself into a position where he might have to
eat his words? The result of this case would
ruin Bosinney; a ruined man was desperate, but—­what
could he do? He might go abroad, ruined men always
went abroad. What could they do—­if
indeed it was ’they’—­without
money? It would be better to wait and see how
things turned out. If necessary, he could have
her watched. The agony of his jealousy (for all
the world like the crisis of an aching tooth) came
on again; and he almost cried out. But he must
decide, fix on some course of action before he got
home. When the cab drew up at the door, he had
decided nothing.

He entered, pale, his hands moist with perspiration,
dreading to meet her, burning to meet her, ignorant
of what he was to say or do.

Page 192

The maid Bilson was in the hall, and in answer to
his question: “Where is your mistress?”
told him that Mrs. Forsyte had left the house about
noon, taking with her a trunk and bag.

Snatching the sleeve of his fur coat away from her
grasp, he confronted her:

“What?” he exclaimed; “what’s
that you said?” Suddenly recollecting that he
must not betray emotion, he added: “What
message did she leave?” and noticed with secret
terror the startled look of the maid’s eyes.

“Mrs. Forsyte left no message, sir.”

“No message; very well, thank you, that will
do. I shall be dining out.”

The maid went downstairs, leaving him still in his
fur coat, idly turning over the visiting cards in
the porcelain bowl that stood on the carved oak rug
chest in the hall.

Who the devil were all these people? He seemed
to have forgotten all familiar things. The words
‘no message—­a trunk, and a bag,’
played a hide-and-seek in his brain. It was
incredible that she had left no message, and, still
in his fur coat, he ran upstairs two steps at a time,
as a young married man when he comes home will run
up to his wife’s room.

Everything was dainty, fresh, sweet-smelling; everything
in perfect order. On the great bed with its
lilac silk quilt, was the bag she had made and embroidered
with her own hands to hold her sleeping things; her
slippers ready at the foot; the sheets even turned
over at the head as though expecting her.

On the table stood the silver-mounted brushes and
bottles from her dressing bag, his own present.
There must, then, be some mistake. What bag
had she taken? He went to the bell to summon
Bilson, but remembered in time that he must assume
knowledge of where Irene had gone, take it all as
a matter of course, and grope out the meaning for himself.

He locked the doors, and tried to think, but felt
his brain going round; and suddenly tears forced themselves
into his eyes.

Hurriedly pulling off his coat, he looked at himself
in the mirror.

He was too pale, a greyish tinge all over his face;
he poured out water, and began feverishly washing.

Her silver-mounted brushes smelt faintly of the perfumed
lotion she used for her hair; and at this scent the
burning sickness of his jealousy seized him again.

Struggling into his fur, he ran downstairs and out
into the street.

He had not lost all command of himself, however, and
as he went down Sloane Street he framed a story for
use, in case he should not find her at Bosinney’s.
But if he should? His power of decision again
failed; he reached the house without knowing what
he should do if he did find her there.

It was after office hours, and the street door was
closed; the woman who opened it could not say whether
Mr. Bosinney were in or no; she had not seen him that
day, not for two or three days; she did not attend
to him now, nobody attended to him, he....

Page 193

Soames interrupted her, he would go up and see for
himself. He went up with a dogged, white face.

The top floor was unlighted, the door closed, no one
answered his ringing, he could hear no sound.
He was obliged to descend, shivering under his fur,
a chill at his heart. Hailing a cab, he told
the man to drive to Park Lane.

On the way he tried to recollect when he had last
given her a cheque; she could not have more than three
or four pounds, but there were her jewels; and with
exquisite torture he remembered how much money she
could raise on these; enough to take them abroad;
enough for them to live on for months! He tried
to calculate; the cab stopped, and he got out with
the calculation unmade.

The butler asked whether Mrs. Soames was in the cab,
the master had told him they were both expected to
dinner.

Soames answered: “No. Mrs. Forsyte
has a cold.”

The butler was sorry.

Soames thought he was looking at him inquisitively,
and remembering that he was not in dress clothes,
asked: “Anybody here to dinner, Warmson?”

“Nobody but Mr. and Mrs. Dartie, sir.”

Again it seemed to Soames that the butler was looking
curiously at him. His composure gave way.

Soames walked upstairs. Passing the drawing-room
without a look, he went straight up to his mother’s
and father’s bedroom.

James, standing sideways, the concave lines of his
tall, lean figure displayed to advantage in shirt-sleeves
and evening waistcoat, his head bent, the end of his
white tie peeping askew from underneath one white
Dundreary whisker, his eyes peering with intense concentration,
his lips pouting, was hooking the top hooks of his
wife’s bodice. Soames stopped; he felt
half-choked, whether because he had come upstairs too
fast, or for some other reason. He—­he
himself had never—­never been asked to....

He heard his father’s voice, as though there
were a pin in his mouth, saying: “Who’s
that? Who’s there? What d’you
want?” His mother’s: “Here,
Felice, come and hook this; your master’ll never
get done.”

He put his hand up to his throat, and said hoarsely:

“It’s I—­Soames!”

He noticed gratefully the affectionate surprise in
Emily’s: “Well, my dear boy?”
and James’, as he dropped the hook: “What,
Soames! What’s brought you up? Aren’t
you well?”

He answered mechanically: “I’m all
right,” and looked at them, and it seemed impossible
to bring out his news.

Page 194

Emily deserted the mirror before which she was standing.
Her tall, full figure lost its majesty and became
very human as she came running over to Soames.

“My dear boy! My dear boy!”

She put her lips to his forehead, and stroked his
hand.

James, too, had turned full towards his son; his face
looked older.

“Left you?” he said. “What
d’you mean—­left you? You never
told me she was going to leave you.”

Soames answered surlily: “How could I tell?
What’s to be done?”

James began walking up and down; he looked strange
and stork-like without a coat. “What’s
to be done!” he muttered. “How should
I know what’s to be done? What’s
the good of asking me? Nobody tells me anything,
and then they come and ask me what’s to be done;
and I should like to know how I’m to tell them!
Here’s your mother, there she stands; she doesn’t
say anything. What I should say you’ve
got to do is to follow her..”

Soames smiled; his peculiar, supercilious smile had
never before looked pitiable.

“I don’t know where she’s gone,”
he said.

“Don’t know where she’s gone!”
said James. “How d’you mean, don’t
know where she’s gone? Where d’you
suppose she’s gone? She’s gone after
that young Bosinney, that’s where she’s
gone. I knew how it would be.”

Soames, in the long silence that followed, felt his
mother pressing his hand. And all that passed
seemed to pass as though his own power of thinking
or doing had gone to sleep.

His father’s face, dusky red, twitching as if
he were going to cry, and words breaking out that
seemed rent from him by some spasm in his soul.

“There’ll be a scandal; I always said
so.” Then, no one saying anything:
“And there you stand, you and your mother!”

And Emily’s voice, calm, rather contemptuous:
“Come, now, James! Soames will do all that
he can.”

And James, staring at the floor, a little brokenly:
“Well, I can’t help you; I’m getting
old. Don’t you be in too great a hurry,
my boy.”

And his mother’s voice again: “Soames
will do all he can to get her back. We won’t
talk of it. It’ll all come right, I dare
say.”

And James: “Well, I can’t see how
it can come right. And if she hasn’t gone
off with that young Bosinney, my advice to you is not
to listen to her, but to follow her and get her back.”

Once more Soames felt his mother stroking his hand,
in token of her approval, and as though repeating
some form of sacred oath, he muttered between his
teeth: “I will!”

All three went down to the drawing-room together.
There, were gathered the three girls and Dartie;
had Irene been present, the family circle would have
been complete.

James sank into his armchair, and except for a word
of cold greeting to Dartie, whom he both despised
and dreaded, as a man likely to be always in want
of money, he said nothing till dinner was announced.
Soames, too, was silent; Emily alone, a woman of
cool courage, maintained a conversation with Winifred
on trivial subjects. She was never more composed
in her manner and conversation than that evening.

Page 195

A decision having been come to not to speak of Irene’s
flight, no view was expressed by any other member
of the family as to the right course to be pursued;
there can be little doubt, from the general tone adopted
in relation to events as they afterwards turned out,
that James’s advice: “Don’t
you listen to her, follow-her and get her back!”
would, with here and there an exception, have been
regarded as sound, not only in Park Lane, but amongst
the Nicholases, the Rogers, and at Timothy’s.
Just as it would surely have been endorsed by that
wider body of Forsytes all over London, who were merely
excluded from judgment by ignorance of the story.

In spite then of Emily’s efforts, the dinner
was served by Warmson and the footman almost in silence.
Dartie was sulky, and drank all he could get; the
girls seldom talked to each other at any time.
James asked once where June was, and what she was
doing with herself in these days. No one could
tell him. He sank back into gloom. Only
when Winifred recounted how little Publius had given
his bad penny to a beggar, did he brighten up.

“Ah!” he said, “that’s a clever
little chap. I don’t know what’ll
become of him, if he goes on like this. An intelligent
little chap, I call him!” But it was only a
flash.

The courses succeeded one another solemnly, under
the electric light, which glared down onto the table,
but barely reached the principal ornament of the walls,
a so-called ‘Sea Piece by Turner,’ almost
entirely composed of cordage and drowning men.

Champagne was handed, and then a bottle of James’
prehistoric port, but as by the chill hand of some
skeleton.

At ten o’clock Soames left; twice in reply to
questions, he had said that Irene was not well; he
felt he could no longer trust himself. His mother
kissed him with her large soft kiss, and he pressed
her hand, a flush of warmth in his cheeks. He
walked away in the cold wind, which whistled desolately
round the corners of the streets, under a sky of clear
steel-blue, alive with stars; he noticed neither their
frosty greeting, nor the crackle of the curled-up
plane-leaves, nor the night-women hurrying in their
shabby furs, nor the pinched faces of vagabonds at
street corners. Winter was come! But Soames
hastened home, oblivious; his hands trembled as he
took the late letters from the gilt wire cage into
which they had been thrust through the slit in the
door.’

None from Irene!

He went into the dining-room; the fire was bright
there, his chair drawn up to it, slippers ready, spirit
case, and carven cigarette box on the table; but after
staring at it all for a minute or two, he turned out
the light and went upstairs. There was a fire
too in his dressing-room, but her room was dark and
cold. It was into this room that Soames went.

He made a great illumination with candles, and for
a long time continued pacing up and down between the
bed and the door. He could not get used to the
thought that she had really left him, and as though
still searching for some message, some reason, some
reading of all the mystery of his married life, he
began opening every recess and drawer.

Page 196

There were her dresses; he had always liked, indeed
insisted, that she should be well-dressed—­she
had taken very few; two or three at most, and drawer
after drawer; full of linen and silk things, was untouched.

Perhaps after all it was only a freak, and she had
gone to the seaside for a few days’ change.
If only that were so, and she were really coming
back, he would never again do as he had done that fatal
night before last, never again run that risk—­though
it was her duty, her duty as a wife; though she did
belong to him—­he would never again run that
risk; she was evidently not quite right in her head!

He stooped over the drawer where she kept her jewels;
it was not locked, and came open as he pulled; the
jewel box had the key in it. This surprised
him until he remembered that it was sure to be empty.
He opened it.

It was far from empty. Divided, in little green
velvet compartments, were all the things he had given
her, even her watch, and stuck into the recess that
contained—­the watch was a three-cornered
note addressed ‘Soames Forsyte,’ in Irene’s
handwriting:

‘I think I have taken nothing that you or your
people have given me.’ And that was all.

He looked at the clasps and bracelets of diamonds
and pearls, at the little flat gold watch with a great
diamond set in sapphires, at the chains and rings,
each in its nest, and the tears rushed up in his eyes
and dropped upon them.

Nothing that she could have done, nothing that she
had done, brought home to him like this the inner
significance of her act. For the moment, perhaps,
he understood nearly all there was to understand—­understood
that she loathed him, that she had loathed him for
years, that for all intents and purposes they were
like people living in different worlds, that there
was no hope for him, never had been; even, that she
had suffered—­that she was to be pitied.

In that moment of emotion he betrayed the Forsyte
in him—­forgot himself, his interests, his
property—­was capable of almost anything;
was lifted into the pure ether of the selfless and
unpractical.

Such moments pass quickly.

And as though with the tears he had purged himself
of weakness, he got up, locked the box, and slowly,
almost trembling, carried it with him into the other
room.

CHAPTER VII

JUNE’S VICTORY

June had waited for her chance, scanning the duller
columns of the journals, morning and evening with
an assiduity which at first puzzled old Jolyon; and
when her chance came, she took it with all the promptitude
and resolute tenacity of her character.

She will always remember best in her life that morning
when at last she saw amongst the reliable Cause List
of the Times newspaper, under the heading of Court
XIII, Mr. Justice Bentham, the case of Forsyte v.
Bosinney.

Like a gambler who stakes his last piece of money,
she had prepared to hazard her all upon this throw;
it was not her nature to contemplate defeat.
How, unless with the instinct of a woman in love,
she knew that Bosinney’s discomfiture in this
action was assured, cannot be told—­on this
assumption, however, she laid her plans, as upon a
certainty.

Page 197

Half past eleven found her at watch in the gallery
of Court XIII., and there she remained till the case
of Forsyte v. Bosinney was over. Bosinney’s
absence did not disquiet her; she had felt instinctively
that he would not defend himself. At the end
of the judgment she hastened down, and took a cab
to his rooms.

She passed the open street-door and the offices on
the three lower floors without attracting notice;
not till she reached the top did her difficulties
begin.

Her ring was not answered; she had now to make up
her mind whether she would go down and ask the caretaker
in the basement to let her in to await Mr. Bosinney’s
return, or remain patiently outside the door, trusting
that no one would, come up. She decided on the
latter course.

A quarter of an hour had passed in freezing vigil
on the landing, before it occurred to her that Bosinney
had been used to leave the key of his rooms under
the door-mat. She looked and found it there.
For some minutes she could not decide to make use
of it; at last she let herself in and left the door
open that anyone who came might see she was there on
business.

This was not the same June who had paid the trembling
visit five months ago; those months of suffering and
restraint had made her less sensitive; she had dwelt
on this visit so long, with such minuteness, that its
terrors were discounted beforehand. She was not
there to fail this time, for if she failed no one
could help her.

Like some mother beast on the watch over her young,
her little quick figure never stood still in that
room, but wandered from wall to wall, from window
to door, fingering now one thing, now another.
There was dust everywhere, the room could not have
been cleaned for weeks, and June, quick to catch at
anything that should buoy up her hope, saw in it a
sign that he had been obliged, for economy’s
sake, to give up his servant.

She looked into the bedroom; the bed was roughly made,
as though by the hand of man. Listening intently,
she darted in, and peered into his cupboards.
A few shirts and collars, a pair of muddy boots—­the
room was bare even of garments.

She stole back to the sitting-room, and now she noticed
the absence of all the little things he had set store
by. The clock that had been his mother’s,
the field-glasses that had hung over the sofa; two
really valuable old prints of Harrow, where his father
had been at school, and last, not least, the piece
of Japanese pottery she herself had given him.
All were gone; and in spite of the rage roused within
her championing soul at the thought that the world
should treat him thus, their disappearance augured
happily for the success of her plan.

It was while looking at the spot where the piece of
Japanese pottery had stood that she felt a strange
certainty of being watched, and, turning, saw Irene
in the open doorway.

The two stood gazing at each other for a minute in
silence; then June walked forward and held out her
hand. Irene did not take it.

Page 198

When her hand was refused, June put it behind her.
Her eyes grew steady with anger; she waited for Irene
to speak; and thus waiting, took in, with who-knows-what
rage of jealousy, suspicion, and curiosity, every
detail of her friend’s face and dress and figure.

Irene was clothed in her long grey fur; the travelling
cap on her head left a wave of gold hair visible above
her forehead. The soft fullness of the coat
made her face as small as a child’s.

Unlike June’s cheeks, her cheeks had no colour
in them, but were ivory white and pinched as if with
cold. Dark circles lay round her eyes.
In one hand she held a bunch of violets.

She looked back at June, no smile on her lips; and
with those great dark eyes fastened on her, the girl,
for all her startled anger, felt something of the
old spell.

She spoke first, after all.

“What have you come for?” But the feeling
that she herself was being asked the same question,
made her add: “This horrible case.
I came to tell him—­he has lost it.”

Irene did not speak, her eyes never moved from June’s
face, and the girl cried:

“Don’t stand there as if you were made
of stone!”

Irene laughed: “I wish to God I were!”

But June turned away: “Stop!” she
cried, “don’t tell me! I don’t
want to hear! I don’t want to hear what
you’ve come for. I don’t want to
hear!” And like some uneasy spirit, she began
swiftly walking to and fro. Suddenly she broke
out:

“I was here first. We can’t both
stay here together!”

On Irene’s face a smile wandered up, and died
out like a flicker of firelight. She did not
move. And then it was that June perceived under
the softness and immobility of this figure something
desperate and resolved; something not to be turned
away, something dangerous. She tore off her
hat, and, putting both hands to her brow, pressed back
the bronze mass of her hair.

“You have no right here!” she cried defiantly.

Irene answered: “I have no right anywhere!

“What do you mean?”

“I have left Soames. You always wanted
me to!”

June put her hands over her ears.

“Don’t! I don’t want to hear
anything—­I don’t want to know anything.
It’s impossible to fight with you! What
makes you stand like that? Why don’t you
go?”

Irene’s lips moved; she seemed to be saying:
“Where should I go?”

June turned to the window. She could see the
face of a clock down in the street. It was nearly
four. At any moment he might come! She
looked back across her shoulder, and her face was
distorted with anger.

But Irene had not moved; in her gloved hands she ceaselessly
turned and twisted the little bunch of violets.

The tears of rage and disappointment rolled down June’s
cheeks.

“How could you come?” she said.
“You have been a false friend to me!”

Page 199

Again Irene laughed. June saw that she had played
a wrong card, and broke down.

“Why have you come?” she sobbed.
“You’ve ruined my life, and now you want
to ruin his!”

Irene’s mouth quivered; her eyes met June’s
with a look so mournful that the girl cried out in
the midst of her sobbing, “No, no!”

But Irene’s head bent till it touched her breast.
She turned, and went quickly out, hiding her lips
with the little bunch of violets.

June ran to the door. She heard the footsteps
going down and down. She called out: “Come
back, Irene! Come back!”

The footsteps died away....

Bewildered and torn, the girl stood at the top of
the stairs. Why had Irene gone, leaving her mistress
of the field? What did it mean? Had she
really given him up to her? Or had she...?
And she was the prey of a gnawing uncertainty....
Bosinney did not come....

About six o’clock that afternoon old Jolyon
returned from Wistaria Avenue, where now almost every
day he spent some hours, and asked if his grand-daughter
were upstairs. On being told that she had just
come in, he sent up to her room to request her to
come down and speak to him.

He had made up his mind to tell her that he was reconciled
with her father. In future bygones must be bygones.
He would no longer live alone, or practically alone,
in this great house; he was going to give it up, and
take one in the country for his son, where they could
all go and live together. If June did not like
this, she could have an allowance and live by herself.
It wouldn’t make much difference to her, for
it was a long time since she had shown him any affection.

But when June came down, her face was pinched and
piteous; there was a strained, pathetic look in her
eyes. She snuggled up in her old attitude on
the arm of his chair, and what he said compared but
poorly with the clear, authoritative, injured statement
he had thought out with much care. His heart
felt sore, as the great heart of a mother-bird feels
sore when its youngling flies and bruises its wing.
His words halted, as though he were apologizing for
having at last deviated from the path of virtue, and
succumbed, in defiance of sounder principles, to his
more natural instincts.

He seemed nervous lest, in thus announcing his intentions,
he should be setting his granddaughter a bad example;
and now that he came to the point, his way of putting
the suggestion that, if she didn’t like it, she
could live by herself and lump it, was delicate in
the extreme.’

“And if, by any chance, my darling,” he
said, “you found you didn’t get on—­with
them, why, I could make that all right. You could
have what you liked. We could find a little
flat in London where you could set up, and I could
be running to continually. But the children,”
he added, “are dear little things!”

Then, in the midst of this grave, rather transparent,
explanation of changed policy, his eyes twinkled.
“This’ll astonish Timothy’s weak
nerves. That precious young thing will have something
to say about this, or I’m a Dutchman!”

Page 200

June had not yet spoken. Perched thus on the
arm of his chair, with her head above him, her face
was invisible. But presently he felt her warm
cheek against his own, and knew that, at all events,
there was nothing very alarming in her attitude towards
his news. He began to take courage.

“You’ll like your father,” he said—­“an
amiable chap. Never was much push about him,
but easy to get on with. You’ll find him
artistic and all that.”

And old Jolyon bethought him of the dozen or so water-colour
drawings all carefully locked up in his bedroom; for
now that his son was going to become a man of property
he did not think them quite such poor things as heretofore.

“As to your—­your stepmother,”
he said, using the word with some little difficulty,
“I call her a refined woman—­a bit
of a Mrs. Gummidge, I shouldn’t wonder—­but
very fond of Jo. And the children,” he
repeated—­indeed, this sentence ran like
music through all his solemn self-justification—­“are
sweet little things!”

If June had known, those words but reincarnated that
tender love for little children, for the young and
weak, which in the past had made him desert his son
for her tiny self, and now, as the cycle rolled, was
taking him from her.

But he began to get alarmed at her silence, and asked
impatiently: “Well, what do you say?”

June slid down to his knee, and she in her turn began
her tale. She thought it would all go splendidly;
she did not see any difficulty, and she did not care
a bit what people thought.

Old Jolyon wriggled. H’m! then people
would think! He had thought that after all these
years perhaps they wouldn’t! Well, he couldn’t
help it! Nevertheless, he could not approve of
his granddaughter’s way of putting it—­she
ought to mind what people thought!

Yet he said nothing. His feelings were too mixed,
too inconsistent for expression.

No—­went on June he did not care; what business
was it of theirs? There was only one thing—­and
with her cheek pressing against his knee, old Jolyon
knew at once that this something was no trifle:
As he was going to buy a house in the country, would
he not—­to please her—­buy that
splendid house of Soames’ at Robin Hill?
It was finished, it was perfectly beautiful, and
no one would live in it now. They would all be
so happy there.

Old Jolyon was on the alert at once. Wasn’t
the ‘man of property’ going to live in
his new house, then? He never alluded to Soames
now but under this title.

“No”—­June said—­“he
was not; she knew that he was not!”

How did she know?

She could not tell him, but she knew. She knew
nearly for certain! It was most unlikely; circumstances
had changed! Irene’s words still rang in
her head: “I have left Soames. Where
should I go?”

But she kept silence about that.

If her grandfather would only buy it and settle that
wretched claim that ought never to have been made
on Phil! It would be the very best thing for
everybody, and everything—­everything might
come straight.

Page 201

And June put her lips to his forehead, and pressed
them close.

But old Jolyon freed himself from her caress, his
face wore the judicial look which came upon it when
he dealt with affairs. He asked: What did
she mean? There was something behind all this—­had
she been seeing Bosinney?

June answered: “No; but I have been to
his rooms.”

“Been to his rooms? Who took you there?”

June faced him steadily. “I went alone.
He has lost that case. I don’t care whether
it was right or wrong. I want to help him; and
I will!”

Old Jolyon asked again: “Have you seen
him?” His glance seemed to pierce right through
the girl’s eyes into her soul.

Again June answered: “No; he was not there.
I waited, but he did not come.”

Old Jolyon made a movement of relief. She had
risen and looked down at him; so slight, and light,
and young, but so fixed, and so determined; and disturbed,
vexed, as he was, he could not frown away that fixed
look. The feeling of being beaten, of the reins
having slipped, of being old and tired, mastered him.

“Ah!” he said at last, “you’ll
get yourself into a mess one of these days, I can
see. You want your own way in everything.”

Visited by one of his strange bursts of philosophy,
he added: “Like that you were born; and
like that you’ll stay until you die!”

And he, who in his dealings with men of business,
with Boards, with Forsytes of all descriptions, with
such as were not Forsytes, had always had his own
way, looked at his indomitable grandchild sadly—­for
he felt in her that quality which above all others
he unconsciously admired.

“Do you know what they say is going on?”
he said slowly.

June crimsoned.

“Yes—­no! I know—­and
I don’t know—­I don’t care!”
and she stamped her foot.

“I believe,” said old Jolyon, dropping
his eyes, “that you’d have him if he were
dead!”

There was a long silence before he spoke again.

“But as to buying this house—­you
don’t know what you’re talking about!”

June said that she did. She knew that he could
get it if he wanted. He would only have to give
what it cost.

“What it cost! You know nothing about
it. I won’t go to Soames—­I’ll
have nothing more to do with that young man.”

“But you needn’t; you can go to Uncle
James. If you can’t buy the house, will
you pay his lawsuit claim? I know he is terribly
hard up—­I’ve seen it. You can
stop it out of my money!”

A twinkle came into old Jolyon’s eyes.

“Stop it out of your money! A pretty way.
And what will you do, pray, without your money?”

But secretly, the idea of wresting the house from
James and his son had begun to take hold of him.
He had heard on Forsyte ’Change much comment,
much rather doubtful praise of this house. It
was ‘too artistic,’ but a fine place.
To take from the ‘man of property’ that
on which he had set his heart, would be a crowning
triumph over James, practical proof that he was going
to make a man of property of Jo, to put him back in
his proper position, and there to keep him secure.
Justice once for all on those who had chosen to regard
his son as a poor, penniless outcast.

Page 202

He would see, he would see! It might be out
of the question; he was not going to pay a fancy price,
but if it could be done, why, perhaps he would do
it!

And still more secretly he knew that he could not
refuse her.

But he did not commit himself. He would think
it over—­he said to June.

CHAPTER VIII

BOSINNEY’S DEPARTURE

Old Jolyon was not given to hasty decisions; it is
probable that he would have continued to think over
the purchase of the house at Robin Hill, had not June’s
face told him that he would have no peace until he
acted.

At breakfast next morning she asked him what time
she should order the carriage.

“Carriage!” he said, with some appearance
of innocence; “what for? I’m not
going out!”

She answered: “If you don’t go early,
you won’t catch Uncle James before he goes into
the City.”

“James! what about your Uncle James?”

“The house,” she replied, in such a voice
that he no longer pretended ignorance.

“I’ve not made up my mind,” he said.

“You must! You must! Oh! Gran—­think
of me!”

Old Jolyon grumbled out: “Think of you—­I’m
always thinking of you, but you don’t think
of yourself; you don’t think what you’re
letting yourself in for. Well, order the carriage
at ten!”

At a quarter past he was placing his umbrella in the
stand at Park Lane—­he did not choose to
relinquish his hat and coat; telling Warmson that
he wanted to see his master, he went, without being
announced, into the study, and sat down.

James was still in the dining-room talking to Soames,
who had come round again before breakfast. On
hearing who his visitor was, he muttered nervously:
“Now, what’s he want, I wonder?”

He then got up.

“Well,” he said to Soames, “don’t
you go doing anything in a hurry. The first
thing is to find out where she is—­I should
go to Stainer’s about it; they’re the
best men, if they can’t find her, nobody can.”
And suddenly moved to strange softness, he muttered
to himself, “Poor little thing, I can’t
tell what she was thinking about!” and went out
blowing his nose.

Old Jolyon did not rise on seeing his brother, but
held out his hand, and exchanged with him the clasp
of a Forsyte.

James took another chair by the table, and leaned
his head on his hand.

“Well,” he said, “how are you?
We don’t see much of you nowadays!”

Old Jolyon paid no attention to the remark.

“How’s Emily?” he asked; and waiting
for no reply, went on “I’ve come to see
you about this affair of young Bosinney’s.
I’m told that new house of his is a white elephant.”

“I don’t know anything about a white elephant,”
said James, “I know he’s lost his case,
and I should say he’ll go bankrupt.”

Old Jolyon was not slow to seize the opportunity this
gave him.

Page 203

“I shouldn’t wonder a bit!” he agreed;
“and if he goes bankrupt, the ’man of
property’—­that is, Soames’ll
be out of pocket. Now, what I was thinking was
this: If he’s not going to live there....”

Seeing both surprise and suspicion in James’
eye, he quickly went on: “I don’t
want to know anything; I suppose Irene’s put
her foot down—­it’s not material to
me. But I’m thinking of a house in the
country myself, not too far from London, and if it
suited me I don’t say that I mightn’t
look at it, at a price.”

James listened to this statement with a strange mixture
of doubt, suspicion, and relief, merging into a dread
of something behind, and tinged with the remains of
his old undoubted reliance upon his elder brother’s
good faith and judgment. There was anxiety, too,
as to what old Jolyon could have heard and how he
had heard it; and a sort of hopefulness arising from
the thought that if June’s connection with Bosinney
were completely at an end, her grandfather would hardly
seem anxious to help the young fellow. Altogether
he was puzzled; as he did not like either to show
this, or to commit himself in any way, he said:

“They tell me you’re altering your Will
in favour of your son.”

He had not been told this; he had merely added the
fact of having seen old Jolyon with his son and grandchildren
to the fact that he had taken his Will away from Forsyte,
Bustard and Forsyte. The shot went home.

“Who told you that?” asked old Jolyon.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said
James; “I can’t remember names—­I
know somebody told me Soames spent a lot of money
on this house; he’s not likely to part with
it except at a good price.”

“Well,” said old Jolyon, “if, he
thinks I’m going to pay a fancy price, he’s
mistaken. I’ve not got the money to throw
away that he seems to have. Let him try and
sell it at a forced sale, and see what he’ll
get. It’s not every man’s house,
I hear!”

James, who was secretly also of this opinion, answered:
“It’s a gentleman’s house.
Soames is here now if you’d like to see him.”

“No,” said old Jolyon, “I haven’t
got as far as that; and I’m not likely to, I
can see that very well if I’m met in this manner!”

James was a little cowed; when it came to the actual
figures of a commercial transaction he was sure of
himself, for then he was dealing with facts, not with
men; but preliminary negotiations such as these made
him nervous—­he never knew quite how far
he could go.

“Well,” he said, “I know nothing
about it. Soames, he tells me nothing; I should
think he’d entertain it—­it’s
a question of price.”

“Oh!” said old Jolyon, “don’t
let him make a favour of it!” He placed his
hat on his head in dudgeon.

The door was opened and Soames came in.

“There’s a policeman out here,”
he said with his half smile, “for Uncle Jolyon.”

Old Jolyon looked at him angrily, and James said:
“A policeman? I don’t know anything
about a policeman. But I suppose you know something
about him,” he added to old Jolyon with a look
of suspicion: “I suppose you’d better
see him!”

Page 204

In the hall an Inspector of Police stood stolidly
regarding with heavy-lidded pale-blue eyes the fine
old English furniture picked up by James at the famous
Mavrojano sale in Portman Square. “You’ll
find my brother in there,” said James.

The Inspector raised his fingers respectfully to his
peaked cap, and entered the study.

James saw him go in with a strange sensation.

“Well,” he said to Soames, “I suppose
we must wait and see what he wants. Your uncle’s
been here about the house!”

He returned with Soames into the dining-room, but
could not rest.

“Now what does he want?” he murmured again.

“Who?” replied Soames: “the
Inspector? They sent him round from Stanhope
Gate, that’s all I know. That ‘nonconformist’
of Uncle Jolyon’s has been pilfering, I shouldn’t
wonder!”

But in spite of his calmness, he too was ill at ease.

At the end of ten minutes old Jolyon came in.
He walked up to the table, and stood there perfectly
silent pulling at his long white moustaches.
James gazed up at him with opening mouth; he had never
seen his brother look like this.

Old Jolyon raised his hand, and said slowly:

“Young Bosinney has been run over in the fog
and killed.”

Then standing above his brother and his nephew, and
looking down at him with his deep eyes:

“There’s—­some—­talk—­of—­suicide,”
he said.

James’ jaw dropped. “Suicide!
What should he do that for?”

Old Jolyon answered sternly: “God knows,
if you and your son don’t!”

But James did not reply.

For all men of great age, even for all Forsytes, life
has had bitter experiences. The passer-by, who
sees them wrapped in cloaks of custom, wealth, and
comfort, would never suspect that such black shadows
had fallen on their roads. To every man of great
age—­to Sir Walter Bentham himself—­the
idea of suicide has once at least been present in the
ante-room of his soul; on the threshold, waiting to
enter, held out from the inmost chamber by some chance
reality, some vague fear, some painful hope.
To Forsytes that final renunciation of property is
hard. Oh! it is hard! Seldom—­perhaps
never—­can they achieve, it; and yet, how
near have they not sometimes been!

So even with James! Then in the medley of his
thoughts, he broke out: “Why I saw it in
the paper yesterday: ‘Run over in the fog!’
They didn’t know his name!” He turned
from one face to the other in his confusion of soul;
but instinctively all the time he was rejecting that
rumour of suicide. He dared not entertain this
thought, so against his interest, against the interest
of his son, of every Forsyte. He strove against
it; and as his nature ever unconsciously rejected
that which it could not with safety accept, so gradually
he overcame this fear. It was an accident!
It must have been!

Old Jolyon broke in on his reverie.

Page 205

“Death was instantaneous. He lay all day
yesterday at the hospital. There was nothing
to tell them who he was. I am going there now;
you and your son had better come too.”

No one opposing this command he led the way from the
room.

The day was still and clear and bright, and driving
over to Park Lane from Stanhope Gate, old Jolyon had
had the carriage open. Sitting back on the padded
cushions, finishing his cigar, he had noticed with
pleasure the keen crispness of the air, the bustle
of the cabs and people; the strange, almost Parisian,
alacrity that the first fine day will bring into London
streets after a spell of fog or rain. And he
had felt so happy; he had not felt like it for months.
His confession to June was off his mind; he had the
prospect of his son’s, above all, of his grandchildren’s
company in the future—­(he had appointed
to meet young Jolyon at the Hotch Potch that very
manning to—­discuss it again); and there
was the pleasurable excitement of a coming encounter,
a coming victory, over James and the ‘man of
property’ in the matter of the house.

He had the carriage closed now; he had no heart to
look on gaiety; nor was it right that Forsytes should
be seen driving with an Inspector of Police.

In that carriage the Inspector spoke again of the
death:

“It was not so very thick—­Just there.
The driver says the gentleman must have had time
to see what he was about, he seemed to walk right into
it. It appears that he was very hard up, we found
several pawn tickets at his rooms, his account at
the bank is overdrawn, and there’s this case
in to-day’s papers;” his cold blue eyes
travelled from one to another of the three Forsytes
in the carriage.

Old Jolyon watching from his corner saw his brother’s
face change, and the brooding, worried, look deepen
on it. At the Inspector’s words, indeed,
all James’ doubts and fears revived. Hard-up—­pawn-tickets—­an
overdrawn account! These words that had all his
life been a far-off nightmare to him, seemed to make
uncannily real that suspicion of suicide which must
on no account be entertained. He sought his son’s
eye; but lynx-eyed, taciturn, immovable, Soames gave
no answering look. And to old Jolyon watching,
divining the league of mutual defence between them,
there came an overmastering desire to have his own
son at his side, as though this visit to the dead
man’s body was a battle in which otherwise he
must single-handed meet those two. And the thought
of how to keep June’s name out of the business
kept whirring in his brain. James had his son
to support him! Why should he not send for Jo?

Taking out his card-case, he pencilled the following
message:

‘Come round at once. I’ve sent the
carriage for you.’

On getting out he gave this card to his coachman,
telling him to drive—­as fast as possible
to the Hotch Potch Club, and if Mr. Jolyon Forsyte
were there to give him the card and bring him at once.
If not there yet, he was to wait till he came.

Page 206

He followed the others slowly up the steps, leaning
on his umbrella, and stood a moment to get his breath.
The Inspector said: “This is the mortuary,
sir. But take your time.”

In the bare, white-walled room, empty of all but a
streak of sunshine smeared along the dustless floor,
lay a form covered by a sheet. With a huge steady
hand the Inspector took the hem and turned it back.
A sightless face gazed up at them, and on either
side of that sightless defiant face the three Forsytes
gazed down; in each one of them the secret emotions,
fears, and pity of his own nature rose and fell like
the rising, falling waves of life, whose wish those
white walls barred out now for ever from Bosinney.
And in each one of them the trend of his nature,
the odd essential spring, which moved him in fashions
minutely, unalterably different from those of every
other human being, forced him to a different attitude
of thought. Far from the others, yet inscrutably
close, each stood thus, alone with death, silent, his
eyes lowered.

The Inspector asked softly:

“You identify the gentleman, sir?”

Old Jolyon raised his head and nodded. He looked
at his brother opposite, at that long lean figure
brooding over the dead man, with face dusky red, and
strained grey eyes; and at the figure of Soames white
and still by his father’s side. And all
that he had felt against those two was gone like smoke
in the long white presence of Death. Whence comes
it, how comes it—­Death? Sudden reverse
of all that goes before; blind setting forth on a
path that leads to where? Dark quenching of the
fire! The heavy, brutal crushing—­out
that all men must go through, keeping their eyes clear
and brave unto the end! Small and of no import,
insects though they are! And across old Jolyon’s
face there flitted a gleam, for Soames, murmuring
to the Inspector, crept noiselessly away.

Then suddenly James raised his eyes. There was
a queer appeal in that suspicious troubled look:
“I know I’m no match for you,” it
seemed to say. And, hunting for handkerchief
he wiped his brow; then, bending sorrowful and lank
over the dead man, he too turned and hurried out.

Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on
the body. Who shall tell of what he was thinking?
Of himself, when his hair was brown like the hair
of that young fellow dead before him? Of himself,
with his battle just beginning, the long, long battle
he had loved; the battle that was over for this young
man almost before it had begun? Of his grand-daughter,
with her broken hopes? Of that other woman?
Of the strangeness, and the pity of it? And
the irony, inscrutable, and bitter of that end?
Justice! There was no justice for men, for they
were ever in the dark!

Or perhaps in his philosophy he thought: Better
to be out of, it all! Better to have done with
it, like this poor youth....

Some one touched him on the arm.

Page 207

A tear started up and wetted his eyelash. “Well,”
he said, “I’m no good here. I’d
better be going. You’ll come to me as soon
as you can, Jo,” and with his head bowed he
went away.

It was young Jolyon’s turn to take his stand
beside the dead man, round whose fallen body he seemed
to see all the Forsytes breathless, and prostrated.
The stroke had fallen too swiftly.

The forces underlying every tragedy—­forces
that take no denial, working through cross currents
to their ironical end, had met and fused with a thunder-clap,
flung out the victim, and flattened to the ground all
those that stood around.

Or so at all events young Jolyon seemed to see them,
lying around Bosinney’s body.

He asked the Inspector to tell him what had happened,
and the latter, like a man who does not every day
get such a chance, again detailed such facts as were
known.

“There’s more here, sir, however,”
he said, “than meets the eye. I don’t
believe in suicide, nor in pure accident, myself.
It’s more likely I think that he was suffering
under great stress of mind, and took no notice of
things about him. Perhaps you can throw some
light on these.”

He took from his pocket a little packet and laid it
on the table. Carefully undoing it, he revealed
a lady’s handkerchief, pinned through the folds
with a pin of discoloured Venetian gold, the stone
of which had fallen from the socket. A scent
of dried violets rose to young Jolyon’s nostrils.

“Found in his breast pocket,” said the
Inspector; “the name has been cut away!”

Young Jolyon with difficulty answered: “I’m
afraid I cannot help you!” But vividly there
rose before him the face he had seen light up, so
tremulous and glad, at Bosinney’s coming!
Of her he thought more than of his own daughter,
more than of them all—­of her with the dark,
soft glance, the delicate passive face, waiting for
the dead man, waiting even at that moment, perhaps,
still and patient in the sunlight.

He walked sorrowfully away from the hospital towards
his father’s house, reflecting that this death
would break up the Forsyte family. The stroke
had indeed slipped past their defences into the very
wood of their tree. They might flourish to all
appearance as before, preserving a brave show before
the eyes of London, but the trunk was dead, withered
by the same flash that had stricken down Bosinney.
And now the saplings would take its place, each one
a new custodian of the sense of property.

Good forest of Forsytes! thought young Jolyon—­soundest
timber of our land!

Concerning the cause of this death—­his
family would doubtless reject with vigour the suspicion
of suicide, which was so compromising! They
would take it as an accident, a stroke of fate.
In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention
of Providence, a retribution—­had not Bosinney
endangered their two most priceless possessions, the
pocket and the hearth? And they would talk of
’that unfortunate accident of young Bosinney’s,’
but perhaps they would not talk—­silence
might be better!

Page 208

As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver’s
account of the accident as of very little value.
For no one so madly in love committed suicide for
want of money; nor was Bosinney the sort of fellow
to set much store by a financial crisis. And
so he too rejected this theory of suicide, the dead
man’s face rose too clearly before him.
Gone in the heyday of his summer—­and to
believe thus that an accident had cut Bosinney off
in the full sweep of his passion was more than ever
pitiful to young Jolyon.

Then came a vision of Soames’ home as it now
was, and must be hereafter. The streak of lightning
had flashed its clear uncanny gleam on bare bones
with grinning spaces between, the disguising flesh
was gone....

In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was
sitting alone when his son came in. He looked
very wan in his great armchair. And his eyes
travelling round the walls with their pictures of still
life, and the masterpiece ‘Dutch fishing-boats
at Sunset’ seemed as though passing their gaze
over his life with its hopes, its gains, its achievements.

“Ah! Jo!” he said, “is that
you? I’ve told poor little June. But
that’s not all of it. Are you going to
Soames’? She’s brought it on herself,
I suppose; but somehow I can’t bear to think
of her, shut up there—­and all alone.”
And holding up his thin, veined hand, he clenched it.

CHAPTER IX

IRENE’S RETURN

After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary
of the hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the
streets.

The tragic event of Bosinney’s death altered
the complexion of everything. There was no longer
the same feeling that to lose a minute would be fatal,
nor would he now risk communicating the fact of his
wife’s flight to anyone till the inquest was
over.

That morning he had risen early, before the postman
came, had taken the first-post letters from the box
himself, and, though there had been none from Irene,
he had made an opportunity of telling Bilson that her
mistress was at the sea; he would probably, he said,
be going down himself from Saturday to Monday.
This had given him time to breathe, time to leave
no stone unturned to find her.

But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney’s
death—­that strange death, to think of which
was like putting a hot iron to his heart, like lifting
a great weight from it—­he did not know how
to pass his day; and he wandered here and there through
the streets, looking at every face he met, devoured
by a hundred anxieties.

And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished
his wandering, his prowling, and would never haunt
his house again.

Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing
the identity of the dead man, and bought the papers
to see what they said. He would stop their mouths
if he could, and he went into the City, and was closeted
with Boulter for a long time.

Page 209

On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson’s
about half past four, he met George Forsyte, who held
out an evening paper to Soames, saying:

“Here! Have you seen this about the poor
Buccaneer?”

Soames answered stonily: “Yes.”

George stared at him. He had never liked Soames;
he now held him responsible for Bosinney’s death.
Soames had done for him—­done for him by
that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to
run amok that fatal afternoon.

‘The poor fellow,’ he was thinking, ’was
so cracked with jealousy, so cracked for his vengeance,
that he heard nothing of the omnibus in that infernal
fog.’

Soames had done for him! And this judgment was
in George’s eyes.

“They talk of suicide here,” he said at
last. “That cat won’t jump.”

Soames shook his head. “An accident,”
he muttered.

Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it
into his pocket. He could not resist a parting
shot.

“H’mm! All flourishing at home?
Any little Soameses yet?”

With a face as white as the steps of Jobson’s,
and a lip raised as if snarling, Soames brushed past
him and was gone....

On reaching home, and entering the little lighted
hall with his latchkey, the first thing that caught
his eye was his wife’s gold-mounted umbrella
lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his fur
coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire
of cedar-logs burned in the grate, and by its light
he saw Irene sitting in her usual corner on the sofa.
He shut the door softly, and went towards her.
She did not move, and did not seem to see him.

“So you’ve come back?” he said.
“Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless
that it seemed as though the blood must have stopped
flowing in her veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous,
like the great, wide, startled brown eyes of an owl.

Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions,
she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched
fir its soft feathers against the wires of a cage.
The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though
she had been broken by cruel exercise; as though there
were no longer any reason for being beautiful, and
supple, and erect.

“So you’ve come back,” he repeated.

She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight
playing over her motionless figure.

Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her;
it was then that he understood.

She had come back like an animal wounded to death,
not knowing where to turn, not knowing what she was
doing. The sight of her figure, huddled in the
fur, was enough.

He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her
lover; knew that she had seen the report of his death—­perhaps,
like himself, had bought a paper at the draughty corner
of a street, and read it.

Page 210

She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage
she had pined to be free of—­and taking
in all the tremendous significance of this, he longed
to cry: “Take your hated body, that I love,
out of my house! Take away that pitiful white
face, so cruel and soft—­before I crush it.
Get out of my sight; never let me see you again!”

And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her
rise and move away, like a woman in a terrible dream,
from which she was fighting to awake—­rise
and go out into the dark and cold, without a thought
of him, without so much as the knowledge of his presence.

Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken,
“No; stay there!” And turning away from
her, he sat down in his accustomed chair on the other
side of the hearth.

They sat in silence.

And Soames thought: ’Why is all this?
Why should I suffer so? What have
I done? It is not my fault!’

Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is
shot and dying, whose poor breast you see panting
as the air is taken from it, whose poor eyes look
at you who have shot it, with a slow, soft, unseeing
look, taking farewell of all that is good—­of
the sun, and the air, and its mate.

So they sat, by the firelight, in the silence, one
on each side of the hearth.

And the fume of the burning cedar logs, that he loved
so well, seemed to grip Soames by the throat till
he could bear it no longer. And going out into
the hall he flung the door wide, to gulp down the cold
air that came in; then without hat or overcoat went
out into the Square.

Along the garden rails a half-starved cat came rubbing
her way towards him, and Soames thought: ‘Suffering!
when will it cease, my suffering?’

At a front door across the way was a man of his acquaintance
named Rutter, scraping his boots, with an air of ‘I
am master here.’ And Soames walked on.

From far in the clear air the bells of the church
where he and Irene had been married were pealing in
‘practice’ for the advent of Christ, the
chimes ringing out above the sound of traffic.
He felt a craving for strong drink, to lull him to
indifference, or rouse him to fury. If only
he could burst out of himself, out of this web that
for the first time in his life he felt around him.
If only he could surrender to the thought: ‘Divorce
her—­turn her out! She has forgotten
you. Forget her!’

If only he could surrender to the thought: ’Let
her go—­she has suffered enough!’

If only he could surrender to the desire: ’Make
a slave of her—­she is in your power!’

If only even he could surrender to the sudden vision:
’What does it all matter?’ Forget himself
for a minute, forget that it mattered what he did,
forget that whatever he did he must sacrifice something.

If only he could act on an impulse!

He could forget nothing; surrender to no thought,
vision, or desire; it was all too serious; too close
around him, an unbreakable cage.

Page 211

On the far side of the Square newspaper boys were
calling their evening wares, and the ghoulish cries
mingled and jangled with the sound of those church
bells.

Soames covered his ears. The thought flashed
across him that but for a chance, he himself, and
not Bosinney, might be lying dead, and she, instead
of crouching there like a shot bird with those dying
eyes....

Something soft touched his legs, the cat was rubbing
herself against them. And a sob that shook him
from head to foot burst from Soames’ chest.
Then all was still again in the dark, where the houses
seemed to stare at him, each with a master and mistress
of its own, and a secret story of happiness or sorrow.

And suddenly he saw that his own door was open, and
black against the light from the hall a man standing
with his back turned. Something slid too in his
breast, and he stole up close behind.

He could see his own fur coat flung across the carved
oak chair; the Persian rugs; the silver bowls, the
rows of porcelain plates arranged along the walls,
and this unknown man who was standing there.

And sharply he asked: “What is it you want,
sir?”

The visitor turned. It was young Jolyon.

“The door was open,” he said. “Might
I see your wife for a minute, I have a message for
her?”

Soames gave him a strange, sidelong stare.

“My wife can see no one,” he muttered
doggedly.

Young Jolyon answered gently: “I shouldn’t
keep her a minute.”

Soames brushed by him and barred the way.

“She can see no one,” he said again.

Young Jolyon’s glance shot past him into the
hall, and Soames turned. There in the drawing-room
doorway stood Irene, her eyes were wild and eager,
her lips were parted, her hands outstretched.
In the sight of both men that light vanished from
her face; her hands dropped to her sides; she stood
like stone.

Soames spun round, and met his visitor’s eyes,
and at the look he saw in them, a sound like a snarl
escaped him. He drew his lips back in the ghost
of a smile.

“This is my house,” he said; “I
manage my own affairs. I’ve told you once—­I
tell you again; we are not at home.”

And in young Jolyon’s face he slammed the door.

THE FORSYTE SAGA

By John Galsworthy

Part 2

Contents:
Indian Summer of a Forsyte
In Chancery

TO ANDRE CHEVRILLON

INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE

“And Summer’s lease
hath all
too short a date.”
—­Shakespeare
I

Page 212

In the last day of May in the early ’nineties,
about six o’clock of the evening, old Jolyon
Forsyte sat under the oak tree below the terrace of
his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the
midges to bite him, before abandoning the glory of
the afternoon. His thin brown hand, where blue
veins stood out, held the end of a cigar in its tapering,
long-nailed fingers—­a pointed polished nail
had survived with him from those earlier Victorian
days when to touch nothing, even with the tips of
the fingers, had been so distinguished. His domed
forehead, great white moustache, lean cheeks, and
long lean jaw were covered from the westering sunshine
by an old brown Panama hat. His legs were crossed;
in all his attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance,
as of an old man who every morning put eau de Cologne
upon his silk handkerchief. At his feet lay a
woolly brown-and-white dog trying to be a Pomeranian—­the
dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon primal aversion
had changed into attachment with the years.
Close to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was
seated one of Holly’s dolls—­called
’Duffer Alice’—­with her body
fallen over her legs and her doleful nose buried in
a black petticoat. She was never out of disgrace,
so it did not matter to her how she sat. Below
the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched
to the fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became
fields, dropping to the pond, the coppice, and the
prospect—­’Fine, remarkable’—­at
which Swithin Forsyte, from under this very tree,
had stared five years ago when he drove down with
Irene to look at the house. Old Jolyon had heard
of his brother’s exploit—­that drive
which had become quite celebrated on Forsyte ’Change.
Swithin! And the fellow had gone and died, last
November, at the age of only seventy-nine, renewing
the doubt whether Forsytes could live for ever, which
had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away. Died!
and left only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas
and Timothy, Julia, Hester, Susan! And old Jolyon
thought: ’Eighty-five! I don’t
feel it—­except when I get that pain.’

His memory went searching. He had not felt his
age since he had bought his nephew Soames’ ill-starred
house and settled into it here at Robin Hill over
three years ago. It was as if he had been getting
younger every spring, living in the country with his
son and his grandchildren—­June, and the
little ones of the second marriage, Jolly and Holly;
living down here out of the racket of London and the
cackle of Forsyte ‘Change,’ free of his
boards, in a delicious atmosphere of no work and all
play, with plenty of occupation in the perfecting and
mellowing of the house and its twenty acres, and in
ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly.
All the knots and crankiness, which had gathered in
his heart during that long and tragic business of June,
Soames, Irene his wife, and poor young Bosinney, had
been smoothed out. Even June had thrown off her
melancholy at last—­witness this travel in
Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother.
Curiously perfect peace was left by their departure;
blissful, yet blank, because his son was not there.
Jo was never anything but a comfort and a pleasure
to him nowadays—­an amiable chap; but women,
somehow—­even the best—­got a
little on one’s nerves, unless of course one
admired them.

Page 213

Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing
from the first elm-tree in the field, and how the
daisies and buttercups had sprung up after the last
mowing! The wind had got into the sou’ west,
too—­a delicious air, sappy! He pushed
his hat back and let the sun fall on his chin and cheek.
Somehow, to-day, he wanted company—­wanted
a pretty face to look at. People treated the
old as if they wanted nothing. And with the
un-Forsytean philosophy which ever intruded on his
soul, he thought: ’One’s never had
enough. With a foot in the grave one’ll
want something, I shouldn’t be surprised!’
Down here—­away from the exigencies of
affairs—­his grandchildren, and the flowers,
trees, birds of his little domain, to say nothing
of sun and moon and stars above them, said, ’Open,
sesame,’ to him day and night. And sesame
had opened—­how much, perhaps, he did not
know. He had always been responsive to what they
had begun to call ‘Nature,’ genuinely,
almost religiously responsive, though he had never
lost his habit of calling a sunset a sunset and a view
a view, however deeply they might move him. But
nowadays Nature actually made him ache, he appreciated
it so. Every one of these calm, bright, lengthening
days, with Holly’s hand in his, and the dog Balthasar
in front looking studiously for what he never found,
he would stroll, watching the roses open, fruit budding
on the walls, sunlight brightening the oak leaves and
saplings in the coppice, watching the water-lily leaves
unfold and glisten, and the silvery young corn of
the one wheat field; listening to the starlings and
skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud, flicking
slow their tufted tails; and every one of these fine
days he ached a little from sheer love of it all,
feeling perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much
longer to enjoy it. The thought that some day—­perhaps
not ten years hence, perhaps not five—­all
this world would be taken away from him, before he
had exhausted his powers of loving it, seemed to him
in the nature of an injustice brooding over his horizon.
If anything came after this life, it wouldn’t
be what he wanted; not Robin Hill, and flowers and
birds and pretty faces—­too few, even now,
of those about him! With the years his dislike
of humbug had increased; the orthodoxy he had worn
in the ’sixties, as he had worn side-whiskers
out of sheer exuberance, had long dropped off, leaving
him reverent before three things alone—­beauty,
upright conduct, and the sense of property; and the
greatest of these now was beauty. He had always
had wide interests, and, indeed could still read The
Times, but he was liable at any moment to put it down
if he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct,
property—­somehow, they were tiring; the
blackbirds and the sunsets never tired him, only gave
him an uneasy feeling that he could not get enough
of them. Staring into the stilly radiance of
the early evening and at the little gold and white
flowers on the lawn, a thought came to him: This

Page 214

weather was like the music of ‘Orfeo,’
which he had recently heard at Covent Garden.
A beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite
Mozart, but, in its way, perhaps even more lovely;
something classical and of the Golden Age about it,
chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli ’almost worthy
of the old days’—­highest praise he
could bestow. The yearning of Orpheus for the
beauty he was losing, for his love going down to Hades,
as in life love and beauty did go—­the yearning
which sang and throbbed through the golden music,
stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world
that evening. And with the tip of his cork-soled,
elastic-sided boot he involuntarily stirred the ribs
of the dog Balthasar, causing the animal to wake and
attack his fleas; for though he was supposed to have
none, nothing could persuade him of the fact.
When he had finished he rubbed the place he had been
scratching against his master’s calf, and settled
down again with his chin over the instep of the disturbing
boot. And into old Jolyon’s mind came a
sudden recollection—­a face he had seen
at that opera three weeks ago—­Irene, the
wife of his precious nephew Soames, that man of property!
Though he had not met her since the day of the ‘At
Home’ in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which
celebrated his granddaughter June’s ill-starred
engagement to young Bosinney, he had remembered her
at once, for he had always admired her—­a
very pretty creature. After the death of young
Bosinney, whose mistress she had so reprehensibly become,
he had heard that she had left Soames at once.
Goodness only knew what she had been doing since.
That sight of her face—­a side view—­in
the row in front, had been literally the only reminder
these three years that she was still alive.
No one ever spoke of her. And yet Jo had told
him something once—­something which had
upset him completely. The boy had got it from
George Forsyte, he believed, who had seen Bosinney
in the fog the day he was run over—­something
which explained the young fellow’s distress—­an
act of Soames towards his wife—­a shocking
act. Jo had seen her, too, that afternoon, after
the news was out, seen her for a moment, and his description
had always lingered in old Jolyon’s mind—­’wild
and lost’ he had called her. And next
day June had gone there—­bottled up her
feelings and gone there, and the maid had cried and
told her how her mistress had slipped out in the night
and vanished. A tragic business altogether!
One thing was certain—­Soames had never been
able to lay hands on her again. And he was living
at Brighton, and journeying up and down—­a
fitting fate, the man of property! For when he
once took a dislike to anyone—­as he had
to his nephew—­old Jolyon never got over
it. He remembered still the sense of relief with
which he had heard the news of Irene’s disappearance.
It had been shocking to think of her a prisoner in
that house to which she must have wandered back, when
Jo saw her, wandered back for a moment—­like

Page 215

a wounded animal to its hole after seeing that news,
‘Tragic death of an Architect,’ in the
street. Her face had struck him very much the
other night—­more beautiful than he had
remembered, but like a mask, with something going on
beneath it. A young woman still—­twenty-eight
perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had another
lover by now. But at this subversive thought—­for
married women should never love: once, even,
had been too much—­his instep rose, and with
it the dog Balthasar’s head. The sagacious
animal stood up and looked into old Jolyon’s
face. ‘Walk?’ he seemed to say; and
old Jolyon answered: “Come on, old chap!”

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the
constellations of buttercups and daisies, and entered
the fernery. This feature, where very little
grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the
level of the lawn so that it might come up again on
the level of the other lawn and give the impression
of irregularity, so important in horticulture.
Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar,
who sometimes found a mole there. Old Jolyon
made a point of passing through it because, though
it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be,
some day, and he would think: ’I must get
Varr to come down and look at it; he’s better
than Beech.’ For plants, like houses and
human complaints, required the best expert consideration.
It was inhabited by snails, and if accompanied by
his grandchildren, he would point to one and tell them
the story of the little boy who said: ’Have
plummers got leggers, Mother? ‘No, sonny.’
‘Then darned if I haven’t been and swallowed
a snileybob.’ And when they skipped and
clutched his hand, thinking of the snileybob going
down the little boy’s ‘red lane,’
his eyes would twinkle. Emerging from the fernery,
he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into
the first field, a large and park-like area, out of
which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had
been carved. Old Jolyon avoided this, which
did not suit his mood, and made down the hill towards
the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or
two, gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an
oldish dog who takes the same walk every day.
Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting another
water-lily opened since yesterday; he would show it
to Holly to-morrow, when ‘his little sweet’
had got over the upset which had followed on her eating
a tomato at lunch—­her little arrangements
were very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone
to school—­his first term—­Holly
was with him nearly all day long, and he missed her
badly. He felt that pain too, which often bothered
him now, a little dragging at his left side.
He looked back up the hill. Really, poor young
Bosinney had made an uncommonly good job of the house;
he would have done very well for himself if he had
lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still
haunting this, the site of his last work, of his tragic
love affair. Or was Philip Bosinney’s spirit

Page 216

diffused in the general? Who could say?
That dog was getting his legs muddy! And he
moved towards the coppice. There had been the
most delightful lot of bluebells, and he knew where
some still lingered like little patches of sky fallen
in between the trees, away out of the sun. He
passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there installed,
and pursued a path into the thick of the saplings,
making for one of the bluebell plots. Balthasar,
preceding him once more, uttered a low growl.
Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog
remained motionless, just where there was no room
to pass, and the hair rose slowly along the centre
of his woolly back. Whether from the growl and
the look of the dog’s stivered hair, or from
the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon
also felt something move along his spine. And
then the path turned, and there was an old mossy log,
and on it a woman sitting. Her face was turned
away, and he had just time to think: ’She’s
trespassing—­I must have a board put up!’
before she turned. Powers above! The face
he had seen at the opera—­the very woman
he had just been thinking of! In that confused
moment he saw things blurred, as if a spirit—­queer
effect—­the slant of sunlight perhaps on
her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and
stood smiling, her head a little to one side.
Old Jolyon thought: ‘How pretty she is!’
She did not speak, neither did he; and he realized
why with a certain admiration. She was here
no doubt because of some memory, and did not mean to
try and get out of it by vulgar explanation.

But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor,
who put her hand down and stroked his head.
Old Jolyon said quickly:

“I saw you at the opera the other night; you
didn’t notice me.”

“Oh, yes! I did.”

He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had
added: ’Do you think one could miss seeing
you?’

“They’re all in Spain,” he remarked
abruptly. “I’m alone; I drove up
for the opera. The Ravogli’s good.
Have you seen the cow-houses?”

In a situation so charged with mystery and something
very like emotion he moved instinctively towards that
bit of property, and she moved beside him. Her
figure swayed faintly, like the best kind of French
figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French grey.
He noticed two or three silver threads in her amber-coloured
hair, strange hair with those dark eyes of hers, and
that creamy-pale face. A sudden sidelong look
from the velvety brown eyes disturbed him. It
seemed to come from deep and far, from another world
almost, or at all events from some one not living very
much in this. And he said mechanically:

“Where are you living now?”

“I have a little flat in Chelsea.”

He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not
want to hear anything; but the perverse word came
out:

Page 217

“Alone?”

She nodded. It was a relief to know that.
And it came into his mind that, but for a twist of
fate, she would have been mistress of this coppice,
showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.

“All Alderneys,” he muttered; “they
give the best milk. This one’s a pretty
creature. Woa, Myrtle!”

The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown
as Irene’s own, was standing absolutely still,
not having long been milked. She looked round
at them out of the corner of those lustrous, mild,
cynical eyes, and from her grey lips a little dribble
of saliva threaded its way towards the straw.
The scent of hay and vanilla and ammonia rose in the
dim light of the cool cow-house; and old Jolyon said:

“You must come up and have some dinner with
me. I’ll send you home in the carriage.”

He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural,
no doubt, with her memories. But he wanted her
company; a pretty face, a charming figure, beauty!
He had been alone all the afternoon. Perhaps
his eyes were wistful, for she answered: “Thank
you, Uncle Jolyon. I should like to.”

He rubbed his hands, and said:

“Capital! Let’s go up, then!”
And, preceded by the dog Balthasar, they ascended
through the field. The sun was almost level in
their faces now, and he could see, not only those
silver threads, but little lines, just deep enough
to stamp her beauty with a coin-like fineness—­the
special look of life unshared with others. “I’ll
take her in by the terrace,” he thought:
“I won’t make a common visitor of her.”

“What do you do all day?” he said.

“Teach music; I have another interest, too.”

“Work!” said old Jolyon, picking up the
doll from off the swing, and smoothing its black petticoat.
“Nothing like it, is there? I don’t
do any now. I’m getting on. What
interest is that?”

“Trying to help women who’ve come to grief.”
Old Jolyon did not quite understand. “To
grief?” he repeated; then realised with a shock
that she meant exactly what he would have meant himself
if he had used that expression. Assisting the
Magdalenes of London! What a weird and terrifying
interest! And, curiosity overcoming his natural
shrinking, he asked:

“Why? What do you do for them?”

“Not much. I’ve no money to spare.
I can only give sympathy and food sometimes.”

Involuntarily old Jolyon’s hand sought his purse.
He said hastily: “How d’you get
hold of them?”

“I go to a hospital.”

“A hospital! Phew!”

“What hurts me most is that once they nearly
all had some sort of beauty.”

Old Jolyon straightened the doll. “Beauty!”
he ejaculated: “Ha! Yes! A sad
business!” and he moved towards the house.
Through a French window, under sun-blinds not yet
drawn up, he preceded her into the room where he was
wont to study The Times and the sheets of an agricultural
magazine, with huge illustrations of mangold wurzels,
and the like, which provided Holly with material for
her paint brush.

Page 218

“Dinner’s in half an hour. You’d
like to wash your hands! I’ll take you
to June’s room.”

He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since
she had last visited this house with her husband,
or her lover, or both perhaps—­he did not
know, could not say! All that was dark, and he
wished to leave it so. But what changes!
And in the hall he said:

“My boy Jo’s a painter, you know.
He’s got a lot of taste. It isn’t
mine, of course, but I’ve let him have his way.”

She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through
the hall and music room, as it now was—­all
thrown into one, under the great skylight. Old
Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she
trying to conjure somebody from the shades of that
space where the colouring was all pearl-grey and silver?
He would have had gold himself; more lively and solid.
But Jo had French tastes, and it had come out shadowy
like that, with an effect as of the fume of cigarettes
the chap was always smoking, broken here and there
by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour.
It was not his dream! Mentally he had hung this
space with those gold-framed masterpieces of still
and stiller life which he had bought in days when quantity
was precious. And now where were they?
Sold for a song! That something which made
him, alone among Forsytes, move with the times had
warned him against the struggle to retain them.
But in his study he still had ‘Dutch Fishing
Boats at Sunset.’

He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for
he felt his side.

“These are the bathrooms,” he said, “and
other arrangements. I’ve had them tiled.
The nurseries are along there. And this is Jo’s
and his wife’s. They all communicate.
But you remember, I expect.”

Irene nodded. They passed on, up the gallery
and entered a large room with a small bed, and several
windows.

“This is mine,” he said. The walls
were covered with the photographs of children and
watercolour sketches, and he added doubtfully:

“These are Jo’s. The view’s
first-rate. You can see the Grand Stand at Epsom
in clear weather.”

The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the
‘prospect’ a luminous haze had settled,
emanation of the long and prosperous day. Few
houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened,
away to a loom of downs.

“The country’s changing,” he said
abruptly, “but there it’ll be when we’re
all gone. Look at those thrushes—­the
birds are sweet here in the mornings. I’m
glad to have washed my hands of London.”

Her face was close to the window pane, and he was
struck by its mournful look. ‘Wish I could
make her look happy!’ he thought. ’A
pretty face, but sad!’ And taking up his can
of hot water he went out into the gallery.

Page 219

“This is June’s room,” he said,
opening the next door and putting the can down; “I
think you’ll find everything.” And
closing the door behind her he went back to his own
room. Brushing his hair with his great ebony
brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau de Cologne,
he mused. She had come so strangely—­a
sort of visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as if
his desire for company, for beauty, had been fulfilled
by whatever it was which fulfilled that sort of thing.
And before the mirror he straightened his still upright
figure, passed the brushes over his great white moustache,
touched up his eyebrows with eau de Cologne, and rang
the bell.

“I forgot to let them know that I have a lady
to dinner with me. Let cook do something extra,
and tell Beacon to have the landau and pair at half-past
ten to drive her back to Town to-night. Is Miss
Holly asleep?”

The maid thought not. And old Jolyon, passing
down the gallery, stole on tiptoe towards the nursery,
and opened the door whose hinges he kept specially
oiled that he might slip in and out in the evenings
without being heard.

But Holly was asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna,
of that type which the old painters could not tell
from Venus, when they had completed her. Her
long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on her face was
perfect peace—­her little arrangements were
evidently all right again. And old Jolyon, in
the twilight of the room, stood adoring her!
It was so charming, solemn, and loving—­that
little face. He had more than his share of the
blessed capacity of living again in the young.
They were to him his future life—­all of
a future life that his fundamental pagan sanity perhaps
admitted. There she was with everything before
her, and his blood—­some of it—­in
her tiny veins. There she was, his little companion,
to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that
she knew nothing but love. His heart swelled,
and he went out, stilling the sound of his patent-leather
boots. In the corridor an eccentric notion attacked
him: To think that children should come to that
which Irene had told him she was helping! Women
who were all, once, little things like this one sleeping
there! ‘I must give her a cheque!’
he mused; ’Can’t bear to think of them!’
They had never borne reflecting on, those poor outcasts;
wounding too deeply the core of true refinement hidden
under layers of conformity to the sense of property—­wounding
too grievously the deepest thing in him—­a
love of beauty which could give him, even now, a flutter
of the heart, thinking of his evening in the society
of a pretty woman. And he went downstairs, through
the swinging doors, to the back regions. There,
in the wine-cellar, was a hock worth at least two
pounds a bottle, a Steinberg Cabinet, better than any
Johannisberg that ever went down throat; a wine of
perfect bouquet, sweet as a nectarine—­nectar
indeed! He got a bottle out, handling it like
a baby, and holding it level to the light, to look.

Page 220

Enshrined in its coat of dust, that mellow coloured,
slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure.
Three years to settle down again since the move from
Town—­ought to be in prime condition!
Thirty-five years ago he had bought it—­thank
God he had kept his palate, and earned the right to
drink it. She would appreciate this; not a spice
of acidity in a dozen. He wiped the bottle, drew
the cork with his own hands, put his nose down, inhaled
its perfume, and went back to the music room.

Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off
her hat and a lace scarf she had been wearing, so
that her gold-coloured hair was visible, and the pallor
of her neck. In her grey frock she made a pretty
picture for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the
piano.

He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went.
The room, which had been designed to enable twenty-four
people to dine in comfort, held now but a little round
table. In his present solitude the big dining-table
oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be removed
till his son came back. Here in the company
of two really good copies of Raphael Madonnas he was
wont to dine alone. It was the only disconsolate
hour of his day, this summer weather. He had
never been a large eater, like that great chap Swithin,
or Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those
cronies of past times; and to dine alone, overlooked
by the Madonnas, was to him but a sorrowful occupation,
which he got through quickly, that he might come to
the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and cigar.
But this evening was a different matter! His
eyes twinkled at her across the little table and he
spoke of Italy and Switzerland, telling her stories
of his travels there, and other experiences which he
could no longer recount to his son and grand-daughter
because they knew them. This fresh audience
was precious to him; he had never become one of those
old men who ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence.
Himself quickly fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively
avoided fatiguing others, and his natural flirtatiousness
towards beauty guarded him specially in his relations
with a woman. He would have liked to draw her
out, but though she murmured and smiled and seemed
to be enjoying what he told her, he remained conscious
of that mysterious remoteness which constituted half
her fascination. He could not bear women who
threw their shoulders and eyes at you, and chattered
away; or hard-mouthed women who laid down the law
and knew more than you did. There was only one
quality in a woman that appealed to him—­charm;
and the quieter it was, the more he liked it.
And this one had charm, shadowy as afternoon sunlight
on those Italian hills and valleys he had loved.
The feeling, too, that she was, as it were, apart,
cloistered, made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely
desirable companion. When a man is very old and
quite out of the running, he loves to feel secure from
the rivalries of youth, for he would still be first
in the heart of beauty. And he drank his hock,
and watched her lips, and felt nearly young.
But the dog Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and
despising in his heart the interruptions of their
talk, and the tilting of those greenish glasses full
of a golden fluid which was distasteful to him.

Page 221

The light was just failing when they went back into
the music-room. And, cigar in mouth, old Jolyon
said:

“Play me some Chopin.”

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love,
ye shall know the texture of men’s souls.
Old Jolyon could not bear a strong cigar or Wagner’s
music. He loved Beethoven and Mozart, Handel
and Gluck, and Schumann, and, for some occult reason,
the operas of Meyerbeer; but of late years he had
been seduced by Chopin, just as in painting he had
succumbed to Botticelli. In yielding to these
tastes he had been conscious of divergence from the
standard of the Golden Age. Their poetry was
not that of Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael
and Titian; Mozart and Beethoven. It was, as
it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no one in
the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and
turned and twisted, and melted up the heart.
And, never certain that this was healthy, he did not
care a rap so long as he could see the pictures of
the one or hear the music of the other.

Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp
festooned with pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair,
whence he could see her, crossed his legs and drew
slowly at his cigar. She sat a few moments with
her hands on the keys, evidently searching her mind
for what to give him. Then she began and within
old Jolyon there arose a sorrowful pleasure, not quite
like anything else in the world. He fell slowly
into a trance, interrupted only by the movements of
taking the cigar out of his mouth at long intervals,
and replacing it. She was there, and the hock
within him, and the scent of tobacco; but there, too,
was a world of sunshine lingering into moonlight,
and pools with storks upon them, and bluish trees
above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and fields
of lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and
a woman all shadowy, with dark eyes and a white neck,
smiled, holding out her arms; and through air which
was like music a star dropped and was caught on a cow’s
horn. He opened his eyes. Beautiful piece;
she played well—­the touch of an angel!
And he closed them again. He felt miraculously
sad and happy, as one does, standing under a lime-tree
in full honey flower. Not live one’s own
life again, but just stand there and bask in the smile
of a woman’s eyes, and enjoy the bouquet!
And he jerked his hand; the dog Balthasar had reached
up and licked it.

“Beautiful!” He said: “Go on—­more
Chopin!”

She began to play again. This time the resemblance
between her and ‘Chopin’ struck him.
The swaying he had noticed in her walk was in her
playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the
soft darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair,
as of moonlight from a golden moon. Seductive,
yes; but nothing of Delilah in her or in that music.
A long blue spiral from his cigar ascended and dispersed.
‘So we go out!’ he thought. ‘No
more beauty! Nothing?’

Page 222

Again Irene stopped.

“Would you like some Gluck? He used to
write his music in a sunlit garden, with a bottle
of Rhine wine beside him.”

“Ah! yes. Let’s have ‘Orfeo.’”
Round about him now were fields of gold and silver
flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight, bright
birds flying to and fro. All was summer.
Lingering waves of sweetness and regret flooded his
soul. Some cigar ash dropped, and taking out
a silk handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a
mingled scent as of snuff and eau de Cologne.
‘Ah!’ he thought, ‘Indian summer—­that’s
all!’ and he said: “You haven’t
played me ‘Che faro.’”

She did not answer; did not move. He was conscious
of something—­some strange upset.
Suddenly he saw her rise and turn away, and a pang
of remorse shot through him. What a clumsy chap!
Like Orpheus, she of course—­she too was
looking for her lost one in the hall of memory!
And disturbed to the heart, he got up from his chair.
She had gone to the great window at the far end.
Gingerly he followed. Her hands were folded
over her breast; he could just see her cheek, very
white. And, quite emotionalized, he said:

“There, there, my love!” The words had
escaped him mechanically, for they were those he used
to Holly when she had a pain, but their effect was
instantaneously distressing. She raised her arms,
covered her face with them, and wept.

Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep
from age. The passionate shame she seemed feeling
at her abandonment, so unlike the control and quietude
of her whole presence was as if she had never before
broken down in the presence of another being.

“There, there—­there, there!”
he murmured, and putting his hand out reverently,
touched her. She turned, and leaned the arms
which covered her face against him. Old Jolyon
stood very still, keeping one thin hand on her shoulder.
Let her cry her heart out—­it would do her
good.

And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern
to examine them.

The window was still open, the curtains had not been
drawn, the last of daylight from without mingled with
faint intrusion from the lamp within; there was a
scent of new-mown grass. With the wisdom of a
long life old Jolyon did not speak. Even grief
sobbed itself out in time; only Time was good for
sorrow—­Time who saw the passing of each
mood, each emotion in turn; Time the layer-to-rest.
There came into his mind the words: ’As
panteth the hart after cooling streams’—­but
they were of no use to him. Then, conscious of
a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her eyes.
He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against
her forehead, and felt her shake with a quivering
of her whole body, as of a tree which shakes itself
free of raindrops. She put his hand to her lips,
as if saying: “All over now! Forgive
me!”

The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led
her back to where she had been so upset. And
the dog Balthasar, following, laid the bone of one
of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.

Page 223

Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion,
he could think of nothing better than china; and moving
with her slowly from cabinet to cabinet, he kept taking
up bits of Dresden and Lowestoft and Chelsea, turning
them round and round with his thin, veined hands, whose
skin, faintly freckled, had such an aged look.

“I bought this at Jobson’s,” he
would say; “cost me thirty pounds. It’s
very old. That dog leaves his bones all over
the place. This old ‘ship-bowl’
I picked up at the sale when that precious rip, the
Marquis, came to grief. But you don’t
remember. Here’s a nice piece of Chelsea.
Now, what would you say this was?” And he was
comforted, feeling that, with her taste, she was taking
a real interest in these things; for, after all, nothing
better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of
china.

When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at
last, he said:

“You must come again; you must come to lunch,
then I can show you these by daylight, and my little
sweet—­she’s a dear little thing.
This dog seems to have taken a fancy to you.”

For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave,
was rubbing his side against her leg. Going
out under the porch with her, he said:

“He’ll get you up in an hour and a quarter.
Take this for your protegees,” and he slipped
a cheque for fifty pounds into her hand. He saw
her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: “Oh!
Uncle Jolyon!” and a real throb of pleasure
went through him. That meant one or two poor
creatures helped a little, and it meant that she would
come again. He put his hand in at the window
and grasped hers once more. The carriage rolled
away. He stood looking at the moon and the shadows
of the trees, and thought: ‘A sweet night!
She......!’

Generated TOC, Edit, Use, or Remove.

Contents

II

III

IV

IN CHANCERY

PART 1

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

Page 224

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

PART II

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

PART III

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

II

Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny.
Old Jolyon walked and talked with Holly. At
first he felt taller and full of a new vigour; then
he felt restless. Almost every afternoon they
would enter the coppice, and walk as far as the log.
‘Well, she’s not there!’ he would
think, ‘of course not!’ And he would feel
a little shorter, and drag his feet walking up the
hill home, with his hand clapped to his left side.
Now and then the thought would move in him: ’Did
she come—­or did I dream it?’ and
he would stare at space, while the dog Balthasar stared
at him. Of course she would not come again!
He opened the letters from Spain with less excitement.
They were not returning till July; he felt, oddly,
that he could bear it. Every day at dinner he
screwed up his eyes and looked at where she had sat.
She was not there, so he unscrewed his eyes again.

Page 225

On the seventh afternoon he thought: ‘I
must go up and get some boots.’ He ordered
Beacon, and set out. Passing from Putney towards
Hyde Park he reflected: ‘I might as well
go to Chelsea and see her.’ And he called
out: “Just drive me to where you took that
lady the other night.” The coachman turned
his broad red face, and his juicy lips answered:
“The lady in grey, sir?”

“Yes, the lady in grey.” What other
ladies were there! Stodgy chap!

The carriage stopped before a small three-storied
block of flats, standing a little back from the river.
With a practised eye old Jolyon saw that they were
cheap. ‘I should think about sixty pound
a year,’ he mused; and entering, he looked
at the name-board. The name ‘Forsyte’
was not on it, but against ‘First Floor, Flat
C’ were the words: ’Mrs. Irene Heron.’
Ah! She had taken her maiden name again!
And somehow this pleased him. He went upstairs
slowly, feeling his side a little. He stood
a moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag
and fluttering there. She would not be in!
And then—­Boots! The thought was
black. What did he want with boots at his age?
He could not wear out all those he had.

“Your mistress at home?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”

“Yes, sir, will you come this way?”

Old Jolyon followed a very little maid—­not
more than sixteen one would say—­into a
very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were drawn.
It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague
fragrance and good taste. He stood in the middle,
with his top hat in his hand, and thought: ‘I
expect she’s very badly off!’ There was
a mirror above the fireplace, and he saw himself reflected.
An old-looking chap! He heard a rustle, and
turned round. She was so close that his moustache
almost brushed her forehead, just under her hair.

“I was driving up,” he said. “Thought
I’d look in on you, and ask you how you got
up the other night.”

And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved.
She was really glad to see him, perhaps.

“Would you like to put on your hat and come
for a drive in the Park?”

But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned.
The Park! James and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas,
or some other member of his precious family would
be there very likely, prancing up and down. And
they would go and wag their tongues about having seen
him with her, afterwards. Better not!
He did not wish to revive the echoes of the past on
Forsyte ’Change. He removed a white hair
from the lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat,
and passed his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and
square chin. It felt very hollow there under
the cheekbones. He had not been eating much
lately—­he had better get that little whippersnapper
who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she
had come back and when they were in the carriage, he
said:

Page 226

“Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens
instead?” and added with a twinkle: “No
prancing up and down there,” as if she had been
in the secret of his thoughts.

Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts,
and strolled towards the water.

“You’ve gone back to your maiden name,
I see,” he said: “I’m not sorry.”

She slipped her hand under his arm: “Has
June forgiven me, Uncle Jolyon?”

He answered gently: “Yes—­yes;
of course, why not?”

“And have you?”

“I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how
the land really lay.” And perhaps he had;
his instinct had always been to forgive the beautiful.

She drew a deep breath. “I never regretted—­I
couldn’t. Did you ever love very deeply,
Uncle Jolyon?”

At that strange question old Jolyon stared before
him. Had he? He did not seem to remember
that he ever had. But he did not like to say
this to the young woman whose hand was touching his
arm, whose life was suspended, as it were, by memory
of a tragic love. And he thought: ’If
I had met you when I was young I—­I might
have made a fool of myself, perhaps.’
And a longing to escape in generalities beset him.

“Love’s a queer thing,” he said,
“fatal thing often. It was the Greeks—­wasn’t
it?—­made love into a goddess; they were
right, I dare say, but then they lived in the Golden
Age.”

“Phil adored them.”

Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly—­with
his power to see all round a thing, he perceived why
she was putting up with him like this. She wanted
to talk about her lover! Well! If it was
any pleasure to her! And he said: “Ah!
There was a bit of the sculptor in him, I fancy.”

“Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he
loved the whole-hearted way the Greeks gave themselves
to art.”

Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he
remembered; as for symmetry—­clean-built
enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of his,
and high cheek-bones—­Symmetry?

“You’re of the Golden Age, too, Uncle
Jolyon.”

Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing
him? No, her eyes were soft as velvet.
Was she flattering him? But if so, why?
There was nothing to be had out of an old chap like
him.

“Phil thought so. He used to say:
’But I can never tell him that I admire him.’”

Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover;
her desire to talk of him! And he pressed her
arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful,
as if he recognised what a link they were between
herself and him.

“He was a very talented young fellow,”
he murmured. “It’s hot; I feel the
heat nowadays. Let’s sit down.”

They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose
broad leaves covered them from the peaceful glory
of the afternoon. A pleasure to sit there and
watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him.
And the wish to increase that liking, if he could,
made him go on:

Page 227

“I expect he showed you a side of him I never
saw. He’d be at his best with you.
His ideas of art were a little new—­to me
“—­he had stiffed the word ‘fangled.’

“Yes: but he used to say you had a real
sense of beauty.” Old Jolyon thought:
‘The devil he did!’ but answered with a
twinkle: “Well, I have, or I shouldn’t
be sitting here with you.” She was fascinating
when she smiled with her eyes, like that!

“He thought you had one of those hearts that
never grow old. Phil had real insight.”

He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of
the past, out of a longing to talk of her dead lover—­not
a bit; and yet it was precious to hear, because she
pleased his eyes and heart which—­quite true!—­had
never grown old. Was that because—­unlike
her and her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation,
had always kept his balance, his sense of symmetry.
Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four,
to admire beauty. And he thought, ’If I
were a painter or a sculptor! But I’m an
old chap. Make hay while the sun shines.’

A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before
them, at the edge of the shadow from their tree.
The sunlight fell cruelly on their pale, squashed,
unkempt young faces. “We’re an ugly
lot!” said old Jolyon suddenly. “It
amazes me to see how—­love triumphs over
that.”

“Love triumphs over everything!”

“The young think so,” he muttered.

“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”

With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving,
her eyes so large and dark and soft, she looked like
Venus come to life! But this extravagance brought
instant reaction, and, twinkling, he said: “Well,
if it had limits, we shouldn’t be born; for
by George! it’s got a lot to put up with.”

Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with
a cuff. The great clumsy thing heated his forehead;
in these days he often got a rush of blood to the
head—­his circulation was not what it had
been.

She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly
she murmured:

“It’s strange enough that I’m alive.”

Those words of Jo’s ‘Wild and lost’
came back to him.

“Ah!” he said: “my son saw
you for a moment—­that day.”

“Was it your son? I heard a voice in the
hall; I thought for a second it was—­Phil.”

Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her
hand over them, took it away again, and went on calmly:
“That night I went to the Embankment; a woman
caught me by the dress. She told me about herself.
When one knows that others suffer, one’s ashamed.”

“One of those?”

She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon,
the horror of one who has never known a struggle with
desperation. Almost against his will he muttered:
“Tell me, won’t you?”

“I didn’t care whether I lived or died.
When you’re like that, Fate ceases to want
to kill you. She took care of me three days—­she
never left me. I had no money. That’s
why I do what I can for them, now.”

Page 228

But old Jolyon was thinking: ‘No money!’
What fate could compare with that? Every other
was involved in it.

“I wish you had come to me,” he said.
“Why didn’t you?” But Irene did
not answer.

“Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose?
Or was it June who kept you away? How are you
getting on now?” His eyes involuntarily swept
her body. Perhaps even now she was—!
And yet she wasn’t thin—­not really!

“Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just
enough.” The answer did not reassure him;
he had lost confidence. And that fellow Soames!
But his sense of justice stifled condemnation.
No, she would certainly have died rather than take
another penny from him. Soft as she looked, there
must be strength in her somewhere—­strength
and fidelity. But what business had young Bosinney
to have got run over and left her stranded like this!

“Well, you must come to me now,” he said,
“for anything you want, or I shall be quite
cut up.” And putting on his hat, he rose.
“Let’s go and get some tea. I told
that lazy chap to put the horses up for an hour, and
come for me at your place. We’ll take a
cab presently; I can’t walk as I used to.”

He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the
gardens—­the sound of her voice, the glancing
of her eyes, the subtle beauty of a charming form
moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at Ruffel’s
in the High Street, and came out thence with a great
box of chocolates swung on his little finger.
He enjoyed the drive back to Chelsea in a hansom,
smoking his cigar. She had promised to come
down next Sunday and play to him again, and already
in thought he was plucking carnations and early roses
for her to carry back to town. It was a pleasure
to give her a little pleasure, if it were pleasure
from an old chap like him! The carriage was already
there when they arrived. Just like that fellow,
who was always late when he was wanted! Old
Jolyon went in for a minute to say good-bye.
The little dark hall of the flat was impregnated with
a disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a bench
against the wall—­its only furniture—­he
saw a figure sitting. He heard Irene say softly:
“Just one minute.” In the little
drawing-room when the door was shut, he asked gravely:
“One of your protegees?”

“Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something
for her.”

He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength
had frightened so many in its time. The idea
of her thus actually in contact with this outcast
grieved and frightened him. What could she do
for them? Nothing. Only soil and make trouble
for herself, perhaps. And he said: “Take
care, my dear! The world puts the worst construction
on everything.”

“I know that.”

He was abashed by her quiet smile. “Well
then—­Sunday,” he murmured: “Good-bye.”

She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.

Page 229

“Good-bye,” he said again; “take
care of yourself.” And he went out, not
looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove
home by way of Hammersmith; that he might stop at
a place he knew of and tell them to send her in two
dozen of their best Burgundy. She must want picking-up
sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he remember
that he had gone up to order himself some boots, and
was surprised that he could have had so paltry an
idea.

III

The little spirits of the past which throng an old
man’s days had never pushed their faces up to
his so seldom as in the seventy hours elapsing before
Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with the
charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead.
Old Jolyon was not restless now, and paid no visits
to the log, because she was coming to lunch.
There is wonderful finality about a meal; it removes
a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except
for reasons beyond control. He played many games
with Holly on the lawn, pitching them up to her who
was batting so as to be ready to bowl to Jolly in
the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte, but
Jolly was—­and Forsytes always bat, until
they have resigned and reached the age of eighty-five.
The dog Balthasar, in attendance, lay on the ball
as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded, till
his face was like the harvest moon. And because
the time was getting shorter, each day was longer
and more golden than the last. On Friday night
he took a liver pill, his side hurt him rather, and
though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy
like that. Anyone telling him that he had found
a new excitement in life and that excitement was not
good for him, would have been met by one of those
steady and rather defiant looks of his deep-set iron-grey
eyes, which seemed to say: ’I know my own
business best.’ He always had and always
would.

On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess
to church, he visited the strawberry beds. There,
accompanied by the dog Balthasar, he examined the
plants narrowly and succeeded in finding at least two
dozen berries which were really ripe. Stooping
was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and
red in the forehead. Having placed the strawberries
in a dish on the dining-table, he washed his hands
and bathed his forehead with eau de Cologne.
There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that
he was thinner. What a ‘threadpaper’
he had been when he was young! It was nice to
be slim—­he could not bear a fat chap; and
yet perhaps his cheeks were too thin! She was
to arrive by train at half-past twelve and walk up,
entering from the road past Drage’s farm at
the far end of the coppice. And, having looked
into June’s room to see that there was hot water
ready, he set forth to meet her, leisurely, for his
heart was beating. The air smelled sweet, larks
sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was visible.
A perfect day! On just such a one, no doubt,

Page 230

six years ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down
with him to look at the site before they began to
build. It was Bosinney who had pitched on the
exact spot for the house—­as June had often
told him. In these days he was thinking much
about that young fellow, as if his spirit were really
haunting the field of his last work, on the chance
of seeing—­her. Bosinney—­the
one man who had possessed her heart, to whom she had
given her whole self with rapture! At his age
one could not, of course, imagine such things, but
there stirred in him a queer vague aching—­as
it were the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a
feeling, too, more generous, of pity for that love
so early lost. All over in a few poor months!
Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering
the coppice—­only a quarter past, twenty-five
minutes to wait! And then, turning the corner
of the path, he saw her exactly where he had seen her
the first time, on the log; and realised that she must
have come by the earlier train to sit there alone
for a couple of hours at least. Two hours of
her society missed! What memory could make that
log so dear to her? His face showed what he
was thinking, for she said at once:

“Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that
I first knew.”

“Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you
like. You’re looking a little Londony;
you’re giving too many lessons.”

That she should have to give lessons worried him.
Lessons to a parcel of young girls thumping out scales
with their thick fingers.

“Where do you go to give them?” he asked.

“They’re mostly Jewish families, luckily.”

Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange
and doubtful.

“They love music, and they’re very kind.”

“They had better be, by George!” He took
her arm—­his side always hurt him a little
going uphill—­and said:

“Did you ever see anything like those buttercups?
They came like that in a night.”

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like
bees after the flowers and the honey. “I
wanted you to see them—­wouldn’t let
them turn the cows in yet.” Then, remembering
that she had come to talk about Bosinney, he pointed
to the clock-tower over the stables:

“I expect he wouldn’t have let me put
that there—­had no notion of time, if I
remember.”

But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers
instead, and he knew it was done that he might not
feel she came because of her dead lover.

“The best flower I can show you,” he said,
with a sort of triumph, “is my little sweet.
She’ll be back from Church directly. There’s
something about her which reminds me a little of you,”
and it did not seem to him peculiar that he had put
it thus, instead of saying: “There’s
something about you which reminds me a little of her.”
Ah! And here she was!

Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess,
whose digestion had been ruined twenty-two years ago
in the siege of Strasbourg, came rushing towards them
from under the oak tree. She stopped about a
dozen yards away, to pat Balthasar and pretend that
this was all she had in her mind. Old Jolyon,
who knew better, said:

Page 231

“Well, my darling, here’s the lady in
grey I promised you.”

Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched
the two of them with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly
beginning with grave inquiry, passing into a shy smile
too, and then to something deeper. She had a
sense of beauty, that child—­knew what was
what! He enjoyed the sight of the kiss between
them.

“Mrs. Heron, Mam’zelle Beauce. Well,
Mam’zelle—­good sermon?”

For, now that he had not much more time before him,
the only part of the service connected with this world
absorbed what interest in church remained to him.
Mam’zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery hand
clad in a black kid glove—­she had been
in the best families—­and the rather sad
eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask:
“Are you well-brrred?” Whenever Holly
or Jolly did anything unpleasing to her—­a
not uncommon occurrence—­she would say to
them: “The little Tayleurs never did that—­they
were such well-brrred little children.”
Jolly hated the little Tayleurs; Holly wondered dreadfully
how it was she fell so short of them. ‘A
thin rum little soul,’ old Jolyon thought her—­Mam’zelle
Beauce.

Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which
he himself had picked in the mushroom house, his chosen
strawberries, and another bottle of the Steinberg
cabinet filled him with a certain aromatic spirituality,
and a conviction that he would have a touch of eczema
to-morrow.

After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish
coffee. It was no matter of grief to him when
Mademoiselle Beauce withdrew to write her Sunday letter
to her sister, whose future had been endangered in
the past by swallowing a pin—­an event held
up daily in warning to the children to eat slowly
and digest what they had eaten. At the foot of
the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly and the dog Balthasar
teased and loved each other, and in the shade old
Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar luxuriously
savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing.
A light, vaguely swaying, grey figure with a fleck
of sunlight here and there upon it, lips just opened,
eyes dark and soft under lids a little drooped.
She looked content; surely it did her good to come
and see him! The selfishness of age had not
set its proper grip on him, for he could still feel
pleasure in the pleasure of others, realising that
what he wanted, though much, was not quite all that
mattered.

“It’s quiet here,” he said; “you
mustn’t come down if you find it dull.
But it’s a pleasure to see you. My little
sweet is the only face which gives me any pleasure,
except yours.”

From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking
to be appreciated, and this reassured him. “That’s
not humbug,” he said. “I never told
a woman I admired her when I didn’t. In
fact I don’t know when I’ve told a woman
I admired her, except my wife in the old days; and
wives are funny.” He was silent, but resumed
abruptly:

Page 232

“She used to expect me to say it more often
than I felt it, and there we were.” Her
face looked mysteriously troubled, and, afraid that
he had said something painful, he hurried on:
“When my little sweet marries, I hope she’ll
find someone who knows what women feel. I shan’t
be here to see it, but there’s too much topsy-turvydom
in marriage; I don’t want her to pitch up against
that.” And, aware that he had made bad
worse, he added: “That dog will scratch.”

A silence followed. Of what was she thinking,
this pretty creature whose life was spoiled; who had
done with love, and yet was made for love? Some
day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find another
mate—­not so disorderly as that young fellow
who had got himself run over. Ah! but her husband?

“Does Soames never trouble you?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly.
For all her softness there was something irreconcilable
about her. And a glimpse of light on the inexorable
nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain which,
belonging to early Victorian civilisation—­so
much older than this of his old age—­had
never thought about such primitive things.

“That’s a comfort,” he said.
“You can see the Grand Stand to-day. Shall
we take a turn round?”

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose
high outer walls peach trees and nectarines were trained
to the sun, through the stables, the vinery, the mushroom
house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the summer-house,
he conducted her—­even into the kitchen garden
to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop
out of their pods with her finger, and lick up from
the palm of her little brown hand. Many delightful
things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar
danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention.
It was one of the happiest afternoons he had ever
spent, but it tired him and he was glad to sit down
in the music room and let her give him tea. A
special little friend of Holly’s had come in—­a
fair child with short hair like a boy’s.
And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs,
on the stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon
begged for Chopin. She played studies, mazurkas,
waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood
at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads
bent forward, listening. Old Jolyon watched.

“Let’s see you dance, you two!”

Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing
and circling, earnest, not very adroit, they went
past and past his chair to the strains of that waltz.
He watched them and the face of her who was playing
turned smiling towards those little dancers thinking:

Page 233

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar,
who took every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle
and said:

“Well, there we are! Aren’t they
sweet? Have you any little ones among your pupils?”

“Yes, three—­two of them darlings.”

“Pretty?”

“Lovely!”

Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for
the very young. “My little sweet,”
he said, “is devoted to music; she’ll be
a musician some day. You wouldn’t give
me your opinion of her playing, I suppose?”

“Of course I will.”

“You wouldn’t like—­”
but he stifled the words “to give her lessons.”
The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him;
yet it would mean that he would see her regularly.
She left the piano and came over to his chair.

“I would like, very much; but there is—­June.
When are they coming back?”

Old Jolyon frowned. “Not till the middle
of next month. What does that matter?”

“You said June had forgiven me; but she could
never forget, Uncle Jolyon.”

Forget! She must forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head. “You
know she couldn’t; one doesn’t forget.”

Always that wretched past! And he said with a
sort of vexed finality:

“Well, we shall see.”

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children,
and a hundred little things, till the carriage came
round to take her home. And when she had gone
he went back to his chair, and sat there smoothing
his face and chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and
took a sheet of paper. He stayed for some minutes
without writing, then rose and stood under the masterpiece
‘Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.’
He was not thinking of that picture, but of his life.
He was going to leave her something in his Will;
nothing could so have stirred the stilly deeps of thought
and memory. He was going to leave her a portion
of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds, qualities,
work—­all that had made that wealth; going
to leave her, too, a part of all he had missed in life,
by his sane and steady pursuit of wealth. All!
What had he missed? ’Dutch Fishing Boats’
responded blankly; he crossed to the French window,
and drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A
wind had got up, and one of last year’s oak
leaves which had somehow survived the gardener’s
brooms, was dragging itself with a tiny clicking rustle
along the stone terrace in the twilight. Except
for that it was very quiet out there, and he could
smell the heliotrope watered not long since.
A bat went by. A bird uttered its last ‘cheep.’
And right above the oak tree the first star shone.
Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some
fresh years of youth. Morbid notion! No

Page 234

such bargain was possible, that was real tragedy!
No making oneself new again for love or life or anything.
Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while
you could, and leave it something in your Will.
But how much? And, as if he could not make that
calculation looking out into the mild freedom of the
country night, he turned back and went up to the chimney-piece.
There were his pet bronzes—­a Cleopatra
with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound
playing with her puppy; a strong man reining in some
horses. ‘They last!’ he thought,
and a pang went through his heart. They had a
thousand years of life before them!

‘How much?’ Well! enough at all events
to save her getting old before her time, to keep the
lines out of her face as long as possible, and grey
from soiling that bright hair. He might live
another five years. She would be well over thirty
by then. ‘How much?’ She had none
of his blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor
of his life for forty years and more, ever since he
married and founded that mysterious thing, a family,
came this warning thought—­None of his blood,
no right to anything! It was a luxury then,
this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an
old man’s whim, one of those things done in
dotage. His real future was vested in those
who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he
was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and
stood looking at the old leather chair in which he
had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars.
And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in
her grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful,
looking up at him. Why! She cared nothing
for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover
of hers. But she was there, whether she would
or no, giving him pleasure with her beauty and grace.
One had no right to inflict an old man’s company,
no right to ask her down to play to him and let him
look at her—­for no reward! Pleasure
must be paid for in this world. ‘How much?’
After all, there was plenty; his son and his three
grandchildren would never miss that little lump.
He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he could
leave it where he liked, allow himself this little
pleasure. He went back to the bureau.
‘Well, I’m going to,’ he thought,
’let them think what they like. I’m
going to!’ And he sat down.

‘How much?’ Ten thousand, twenty thousand—­how
much? If only with his money he could buy one
year, one month of youth. And startled by that
thought, he wrote quickly:

’DearHerring,—­Draw me
a codicil to this effect: “I leave to my
niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name
she now goes, fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy
duty.” ’Yours faithfully, ’JolyonForsyte.’

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went
back to the window and drew in a long breath.
It was dark, but many stars shone now.

IV

Page 235

He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience
had taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward
thoughts. Experience had also taught him that
a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed
the folly of such panic. On this particular
morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum
was that if he became ill, at his age not improbable,
he would not see her. From this it was but a
step to realisation that he would be cut off, too,
when his son and June returned from Spain. How
could he justify desire for the company of one who
had stolen—­early morning does not mince
words—­June’s lover? That lover
was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing; warm-hearted,
but stubborn as wood, and—­quite true—­not
one who forgot! By the middle of next month
they would be back. He had barely five weeks
left to enjoy the new interest which had come into
what remained of his life. Darkness showed up
to him absurdly clear the nature of his feeling.
Admiration for beauty—­a craving to see
that which delighted his eyes.

Preposterous, at his age! And yet—­what
other reason was there for asking June to undergo
such painful reminder, and how prevent his son and
his son’s wife from thinking him very queer?
He would be reduced to sneaking up to London, which
tired him; and the least indisposition would cut him
off even from that. He lay with eyes open, setting
his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself
an old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then
seemed to stop beating altogether. He had seen
the dawn lighting the window chinks, heard the birds
chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow, before he fell
asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five
weeks before he need bother, at his age an eternity!
But that early morning panic had left its mark, had
slightly fevered the will of one who had always had
his own way. He would see her as often as he
wished! Why not go up to town and make that
codicil at his solicitor’s instead of writing
about it; she might like to go to the opera!
But, by train, for he would not have that fat chap
Beacon grinning behind his back. Servants were
such fools; and, as likely as not, they had known all
the past history of Irene and young Bosinney—­servants
knew everything, and suspected the rest. He wrote
to her that morning:

“MydearIrene,—­I
have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would
like to have a look in at the opera, come and dine
with me quietly ....”

But where? It was decades since he had dined
anywhere in London save at his Club or at a private
house. Ah! that new-fangled place close to Covent
Garden....

“Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the
Piedmont Hotel whether to expect you there at 7 o’clock.”
“Yours affectionately, “JolyonForsyte.”

She would understand that he just wanted to give her
a little pleasure; for the idea that she should guess
he had this itch to see her was instinctively unpleasant
to him; it was not seemly that one so old should go
out of his way to see beauty, especially in a woman.

Page 236

The journey next day, short though it was, and the
visit to his lawyer’s, tired him. It was
hot too, and after dressing for dinner he lay down
on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little.
He must have had a sort of fainting fit, for he came
to himself feeling very queer; and with some difficulty
rose and rang the bell. Why! it was past seven!
And there he was and she would be waiting.
But suddenly the dizziness came on again, and he was
obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the
maid’s voice say:

“Did you ring, sir?”

“Yes, come here”; he could not see her
clearly, for the cloud in front of his eyes.
“I’m not well, I want some sal volatile.”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice sounded frightened.

Old Jolyon made an effort.

“Don’t go. Take this message to
my niece—­a lady waiting in the hall—­a
lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well—­the
heat. He is very sorry; if he is not down directly,
she is not to wait dinner.”

When she was gone, he thought feebly: ’Why
did I say a lady in grey—­she may be in
anything. Sal volatile!’ He did not go
off again, yet was not conscious of how Irene came
to be standing beside him, holding smelling salts
to his nose, and pushing a pillow up behind his head.
He heard her say anxiously: “Dear Uncle
Jolyon, what is it?” was dimly conscious of
the soft pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew
a long breath of smelling salts, suddenly discovered
strength in them, and sneezed.

“Ha!” he said, “it’s nothing.
How did you get here? Go down and dine—­the
tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be
all right in a minute.”

He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets,
and sat divided between a sort of pleasure and a determination
to be all right.

“Why! You are in grey!” he said.
“Help me up.” Once on his feet he
gave himself a shake.

“What business had I to go off like that!”
And he moved very slowly to the glass. What
a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind him, murmured:

“You mustn’t come down, Uncle; you must
rest.”

“Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne’ll
soon set me to rights. I can’t have you
missing the opera.”

But the journey down the corridor was troublesome.
What carpets they had in these newfangled places,
so thick that you tripped up in them at every step!
In the lift he noticed how concerned she looked, and
said with the ghost of a twinkle:

“I’m a pretty host.”

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the
seat to prevent its slipping under him; but after
soup and a glass of champagne he felt much better,
and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought such
solicitude into her manner towards him.

“I should have liked you for a daughter,”
he said suddenly; and watching the smile in her eyes,
went on:

“You mustn’t get wrapped up in the past
at your time of life; plenty of that when you get
to my age. That’s a nice dress—­I
like the style.”

Page 237

“I made it myself.”

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock
had not lost her interest in life.

“Make hay while the sun shines,” he said;
“and drink that up. I want to see some
colour in your cheeks. We mustn’t waste
life; it doesn’t do. There’s a new
Marguerite to-night; let’s hope she won’t
be fat. And Mephisto—­anything more
dreadful than a fat chap playing the Devil I can’t
imagine.”

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in
getting up from dinner the dizziness came over him
again, and she insisted on his staying quiet and going
to bed early. When he parted from her at the
door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive
her to Chelsea, he sat down again for a moment to
enjoy the memory of her words: “You are
such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!” Why!
Who wouldn’t be! He would have liked to
stay up another day and take her to the Zoo, but two
days running of him would bore her to death.
No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised
to come then. They would settle those lessons
for Holly, if only for a month. It would be
something. That little Mam’zelle Beauce
wouldn’t like it, but she would have to lump
it. And crushing his old opera hat against his
chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with
a desire to say: ‘Drive me to Chelsea.’
But his sense of proportion was too strong.
Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk
another aberration like that of last night, away from
home. Holly, too, was expecting him, and what
he had in his bag for her. Not that there was
any cupboard love in his little sweet—­she
was a bundle of affection. Then, with the rather
bitter cynicism of the old, he wondered for a second
whether it was not cupboard love which made Irene
put up with him. No, she was not that sort either.
She had, if anything, too little notion of how to
butter her bread, no sense of property, poor thing!
Besides, he had not breathed a word about that codicil,
nor should he—­sufficient unto the day was
the good thereof.

In the victoria which met him at the station Holly
was restraining the dog Balthasar, and their caresses
made ‘jubey’ his drive home. All the
rest of that fine hot day and most of the next he was
content and peaceful, reposing in the shade, while
the long lingering sunshine showered gold on the lawns
and the flowers. But on Thursday evening at
his lonely dinner he began to count the hours; sixty-five
till he would go down to meet her again in the little
coppice, and walk up through the fields at her side.
He had intended to consult the doctor about his fainting
fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet,
no excitement and all that; and he did not mean to
be tied by the leg, did not want to be told of an
infirmity—­if there were one, could not afford
to hear of it at his time of life, now that this new
interest had come. And he carefully avoided making
any mention of it in a letter to his son. It
would only bring them back with a run! How far
this silence was due to consideration for their pleasure,
how far to regard for his own, he did not pause to
consider.

Page 238

That night in his study he had just finished his cigar
and was dozing off, when he heard the rustle of a
gown, and was conscious of a scent of violets.
Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in grey, standing
by the fireplace, holding out her arms. The
odd thing was that, though those arms seemed to hold
nothing, they were curved as if round someone’s
neck, and her own neck was bent back, her lips open,
her eyes closed. She vanished at once, and there
were the mantelpiece and his bronzes. But those
bronzes and the mantelpiece had not been there when
she was, only the fireplace and the wall! Shaken
and troubled, he got up. ’I must take
medicine,’ he thought; ‘I can’t be
well.’ His heart beat too fast, he had
an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the
window, he opened it to get some air. A dog
was barking far away, one of the dogs at Gage’s
farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A beautiful
still night, but dark. ‘I dropped off,’
he mused, ’that’s it! And yet I’ll
swear my eyes were open!’ A sound like a sigh
seemed to answer.

“What’s that?” he said sharply,
“who’s there?”

Putting his hand to his side to still the beating
of his heart, he stepped out on the terrace.
Something soft scurried by in the dark. “Shoo!”
It was that great grey cat. ’Young Bosinney
was like a great cat!’ he thought. ’It
was him in there, that she—­that she was—­He’s
got her still!’ He walked to the edge of the
terrace, and looked down into the darkness; he could
just see the powdering of the daisies on the unmown
lawn. Here to-day and gone to-morrow! And
there came the moon, who saw all, young and old, alive
and dead, and didn’t care a dump! His
own turn soon. For a single day of youth he would
give what was left! And he turned again towards
the house. He could see the windows of the night
nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep.
’Hope that dog won’t wake her!’
he thought. ’What is it makes us love,
and makes us die! I must go to bed.’

And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the
moonlight, he passed back within.

How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming
of his well-spent past? In that, at all events,
there is no agitating warmth, only pale winter sunshine.
The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the
dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust;
the future shun. From beneath thick shade he
should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes.
If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into
it, mistaking it for the Indian-summer sun!
Thus peradventure he shall decline softly, slowly,
imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his
wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning
before the world is aired, and they put on his tombstone:
‘In the fulness of years!’ yea! If
he preserve his principles in perfect order, a Forsyte
may live on long after he is dead.

Page 239

Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there
was in him that which transcended Forsyteism.
For it is written that a Forsyte shall not love beauty
more than reason; nor his own way more than his own
health. And something beat within him in these
days that with each throb fretted at the thinning
shell. His sagacity knew this, but it knew too
that he could not stop that beating, nor would if
he could. And yet, if you had told him he was
living on his capital, he would have stared you down.
No, no; a man did not live on his capital; it was not
done! The shibboleths of the past are ever more
real than the actualities of the present. And
he, to whom living on one’s capital had always
been anathema, could not have borne to have applied
so gross a phrase to his own case. Pleasure is
healthful; beauty good to see; to live again in the
youth of the young—­and what else on earth
was he doing!

Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life,
he now arranged his time. On Tuesdays he journeyed
up to town by train; Irene came and dined with him.
And they went to the opera. On Thursdays he
drove to town, and, putting that fat chap and his
horses up, met her in Kensington Gardens, picking
up the carriage after he had left her, and driving
home again in time for dinner. He threw out the
casual formula that he had business in London on those
two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she came
down to give Holly music lessons. The greater
the pleasure he took in her society, the more scrupulously
fastidious he became, just a matter-of-fact and friendly
uncle. Not even in feeling, really, was he more—­for,
after all, there was his age. And yet, if she
were late he fidgeted himself to death. If she
missed coming, which happened twice, his eyes grew
sad as an old dog’s, and he failed to sleep.

And so a month went by—­a month of summer
in the fields, and in his heart, with summer’s
heat and the fatigue thereof. Who could have
believed a few weeks back that he would have looked
forward to his son’s and his grand-daughter’s
return with something like dread! There was such
a delicious freedom, such recovery of that independence
a man enjoys before he founds a family, about these
weeks of lovely weather, and this new companionship
with one who demanded nothing, and remained always
a little unknown, retaining the fascination of mystery.
It was like a draught of wine to him who has been
drinking water for so long that he has almost forgotten
the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to
his brain. The flowers were coloured brighter,
scents and music and the sunlight had a living value—­were
no longer mere reminders of past enjoyment.
There was something now to live for which stirred him
continually to anticipation. He lived in that,
not in retrospection; the difference is considerable
to any so old as he. The pleasures of the table,
never of much consequence to one naturally abstemious,
had lost all value. He ate little, without knowing

Page 240

what he ate; and every day grew thinner and more worn
to look at. He was again a ‘threadpaper’;
and to this thinned form his massive forehead, with
hollows at the temples, gave more dignity than ever.
He was very well aware that he ought to see the doctor,
but liberty was too sweet. He could not afford
to pet his frequent shortness of breath and the pain
in his side at the expense of liberty. Return
to the vegetable existence he had led among the agricultural
journals with the life-size mangold wurzels, before
this new attraction came into his life—­no!
He exceeded his allowance of cigars. Two a day
had always been his rule. Now he smoked three
and sometimes four—­a man will when he is
filled with the creative spirit. But very often
he thought: ’I must give up smoking, and
coffee; I must give up rattling up to town.’
But he did not; there was no one in any sort of authority
to notice him, and this was a priceless boon.

The servants perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally,
dumb. Mam’zelle Beauce was too concerned
with her own digestion, and too ‘wellbrrred’
to make personal allusions. Holly had not as
yet an eye for the relative appearance of him who
was her plaything and her god. It was left for
Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to rest in the
hot part of the day, to take a tonic, and so forth.
But she did not tell him that she was the a cause
of his thinness—­for one cannot see the havoc
oneself is working. A man of eighty-five has
no passions, but the Beauty which produces passion
works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes
which crave the sight of Her.

On the first day of the second week in July he received
a letter from his son in Paris to say that they would
all be back on Friday. This had always been more
sure than Fate; but, with the pathetic improvidence
given to the old, that they may endure to the end,
he had never quite admitted it. Now he did,
and something would have to be done. He had
ceased to be able to imagine life without this new
interest, but that which is not imagined sometimes
exists, as Forsytes are perpetually finding to their
cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling
up the letter, and mumbling with his lips the end
of an unlighted cigar. After to-morrow his Tuesday
expeditions to town would have to be abandoned.
He could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on
the pretext of seeing his man of business. But
even that would be dependent on his health, for now
they would begin to fuss about him. The lessons!
The lessons must go on! She must swallow down
her scruples, and June must put her feelings in her
pocket. She had done so once, on the day after
the news of Bosinney’s death; what she had done
then, she could surely do again now. Four years
since that injury was inflicted on her—­not
Christian to keep the memory of old sores alive.
June’s will was strong, but his was stronger,
for his sands were running out. Irene was soft,
surely she would do this for him, subdue her natural

Page 241

shrinking, sooner than give him pain! The lessons
must continue; for if they did, he was secure.
And lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to
shape out how to put it to them all, and explain this
strange intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away from
the naked truth—­that he could not bear to
be deprived of the sight of beauty. Ah!
Holly! Holly was fond of her, Holly liked her
lessons. She would save him—­his little
sweet! And with that happy thought he became
serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about
so fearfully. He must not worry, it left him
always curiously weak, and as if but half present
in his own body.

That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness,
though he did not faint. He would not ring the
bell, because he knew it would mean a fuss, and make
his going up on the morrow more conspicuous.
When one grew old, the whole world was in conspiracy
to limit freedom, and for what reason?—­just
to keep the breath in him a little longer. He
did not want it at such cost. Only the dog Balthasar
saw his lonely recovery from that weakness; anxiously
watched his master go to the sideboard and drink some
brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit. When
at last old Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs
he went up to bed. And, though still shaky next
morning, the thought of the evening sustained and
strengthened him. It was always such a pleasure
to give her a good dinner—­he suspected
her of undereating when she was alone; and, at the
opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten, the unconscious
smiling of her lips. She hadn’t much pleasure,
and this was the last time he would be able to give
her that treat. But when he was packing his bag
he caught himself wishing that he had not the fatigue
of dressing for dinner before him, and the exertion,
too, of telling her about June’s return.

The opera that evening was ‘Carmen,’ and
he chose the last entr’acte to break the news,
instinctively putting it off till the latest moment.

She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not
know how she had taken it before the wayward music
lifted up again and silence became necessary.
The mask was down over her face, that mask behind which
so much went on that he could not see. She wanted
time to think it over, no doubt! He would not
press her, for she would be coming to give her lesson
to-morrow afternoon, and he should see her then when
she had got used to the idea. In the cab he talked
only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old
days, but this one was not bad at all. When he
took her hand to say good-night, she bent quickly
forward and kissed his forehead.

“Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been
so sweet to me.”

“To-morrow then,” he said. “Good-night.
Sleep well.” She echoed softly:
“Sleep well” and from the cab window, already
moving away, he saw her face screwed round towards
him, and her hand put out in a gesture which seemed
to linger.

Page 242

He sought his room slowly. They never gave him
the same, and he could not get used to these ‘spick-and-spandy’
bedrooms with new furniture and grey-green carpets
sprinkled all over with pink roses. He was wakeful
and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing in his head.

His French had never been equal to its words, but
its sense he knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing—­wild
and unaccountable. Well, there was in life something
which upset all your care and plans—­something
which made men and women dance to its pipes.
And he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness
where the unaccountable held sway. You thought
you had hold of life, but it slipped away behind you,
took you by the scruff of the neck, forced you here
and forced you there, and then, likely as not, squeezed
life out of you! It took the very stars like
that, he shouldn’t wonder, rubbed their noses
together and flung them apart; it had never done playing
its pranks. Five million people in this great
blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy
of that Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas
hopping about on a board when you struck your fist
on it. Ah, well! Himself would not hop much
longer—­a good long sleep would do him good!

How hot it was up here!—­how noisy!
His forehead burned; she had kissed it just where
he always worried; just there—­as if she
had known the very place and wanted to kiss it all
away for him. But, instead, her lips left a
patch of grievous uneasiness. She had never spoken
in quite that voice, had never before made that lingering
gesture or looked back at him as she drove away.

He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his
room faced down over the river. There was little
air, but the sight of that breadth of water flowing
by, calm, eternal, soothed him. ‘The great
thing,’ he thought ’is not to make myself
a nuisance. I’ll think of my little sweet,
and go to sleep.’ But it was long before
the heat and throbbing of the London night died out
into the short slumber of the summer morning.
And old Jolyon had but forty winks.

When he reached home next day he went out to the flower
garden, and with the help of Holly, who was very delicate
with flowers, gathered a great bunch of carnations.
They were, he told her, for ’the lady in grey’—­a
name still bandied between them; and he put them in
a bowl in his study where he meant to tackle Irene
the moment she came, on the subject of June and future
lessons. Their fragrance and colour would help.
After lunch he lay down, for he felt very tired,
and the carriage would not bring her from the station
till four o’clock. But as the hour approached
he grew restless, and sought the schoolroom, which
overlooked the drive. The sun-blinds were down,
and Holly was there with Mademoiselle Beauce, sheltered
from the heat of a stifling July day, attending to
their silkworms. Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy
to these methodical creatures, whose heads and colour

Page 243

reminded him of elephants; who nibbled such quantities
of holes in nice green leaves; and smelled, as he
thought, horrid. He sat down on a chintz-covered
windowseat whence he could see the drive, and get
what air there was; and the dog Balthasar who appreciated
chintz on hot days, jumped up beside him. Over
the cottage piano a violet dust-sheet, faded almost
to grey, was spread, and on it the first lavender,
whose scent filled the room. In spite of the
coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the
beat of life vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses.
Each sunbeam which came through the chinks had annoying
brilliance; that dog smelled very strong; the lavender
perfume was overpowering; those silkworms heaving up
their grey-green backs seemed horribly alive; and
Holly’s dark head bent over them had a wonderfully
silky sheen. A marvellous cruelly strong thing
was life when you were old and weak; it seemed to mock
you with its multitude of forms and its beating vitality.
He had never, till those last few weeks, had this
curious feeling of being with one half of him eagerly
borne along in the stream of life, and with the other
half left on the bank, watching that helpless progress.
Only when Irene was with him did he lose this double
consciousness.

Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown
fist to the piano—­for to point with a finger
was not ’well-brrred’—­and said
slyly:

“Look at the ‘lady in grey,’ Gran;
isn’t she pretty to-day?”

Old Jolyon’s heart gave a flutter, and for a
second the room was clouded; then it cleared, and
he said with a twinkle:

“Who’s been dressing her up?”

“Mam’zelle.”

“Hollee! Don’t be foolish!”

That prim little Frenchwoman! She hadn’t
yet got over the music lessons being taken away from
her. That wouldn’t help. His little
sweet was the only friend they had. Well, they
were her lessons. And he shouldn’t budge
shouldn’t budge for anything. He stroked
the warm wool on Balthasar’s head, and heard
Holly say: “When mother’s home, there
won’t be any changes, will there? She
doesn’t like strangers, you know.”

The child’s words seemed to bring the chilly
atmosphere of opposition about old Jolyon, and disclose
all the menace to his new-found freedom. Ah!
He would have to resign himself to being an old man
at the mercy of care and love, or fight to keep this
new and prized companionship; and to fight tired him
to death. But his thin, worn face hardened into
resolution till it appeared all Jaw. This was
his house, and his affair; he should not budge!
He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself;
he had owned it fifty years. Past four already!
And kissing the top of Holly’s head in passing,
he went down to the hall. He wanted to get hold
of her before she went up to give her lesson.
At the first sound of wheels he stepped out into
the porch, and saw at once that the victoria was empty.

Page 244

“The train’s in, sir; but the lady ’asn’t
come.”

Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes
seemed to push away that fat chap’s curiosity,
and defy him to see the bitter disappointment he was
feeling.

“Very well,” he said, and turned back
into the house. He went to his study and sat
down, quivering like a leaf. What did this mean?
She might have lost her train, but he knew well enough
she hadn’t. ’Good-bye, dear Uncle
Jolyon.’ Why ‘Good-bye’ and
not ‘Good-night’? And that hand of
hers lingering in the air. And her kiss.
What did it mean? Vehement alarm and irritation
took possession of him. He got up and began to
pace the Turkey carpet, between window and wall.
She was going to give him up! He felt it for
certain—­and he defenceless. An old
man wanting to look on beauty! It was ridiculous!
Age closed his mouth, paralysed his power to fight.
He had no right to what was warm and living, no right
to anything but memories and sorrow. He could
not plead with her; even an old man has his dignity.
Defenceless! For an hour, lost to bodily fatigue,
he paced up and down, past the bowl of carnations he
had plucked, which mocked him with its scent.
Of all things hard to bear, the prostration of will-power
is hardest, for one who has always had his way.
Nature had got him in its net, and like an unhappy
fish he turned and swam at the meshes, here and there,
found no hole, no breaking point. They brought
him tea at five o’clock, and a letter.
For a moment hope beat up in him. He cut the
envelope with the butter knife, and read:

“DearestuncleJolyon,—­I
can’t bear to write anything that may disappoint
you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night.
I feel I can’t come down and give Holly any
more lessons, now that June is coming back.
Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It has
been such a joy to see you and Holly. Perhaps
I shall still see you sometimes when you come up,
though I’m sure it’s not good for you;
I can see you are tiring yourself too much.
I believe you ought to rest quite quietly all this
hot weather, and now you have your son and June coming
back you will be so happy. Thank you a million
times for all your sweetness to me.

“Lovingly your Irene.”

So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure
and what he chiefly cared about; to try and put off
feeling the inevitable end of all things, the approach
of death with its stealthy, rustling footsteps.
Not good for him! Not even she could see how
she was his new lease of interest in life, the incarnation
of all the beauty he felt slipping from him.

His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up
and down he paced, torn between his dignity and his
hold on life. Intolerable to be squeezed out
slowly, without a say of your own, to live on when
your will was in the hands of others bent on weighing
you to the ground with care and love. Intolerable!
He would see what telling her the truth would do—­the
truth that he wanted the sight of her more than just
a lingering on. He sat down at his old bureau
and took a pen. But he could not write.
There was something revolting in having to plead like
this; plead that she should warm his eyes with her
beauty. It was tantamount to confessing dotage.
He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:

Page 245

“I had hoped that the memory of old sores would
not be allowed to stand in the way of what is a pleasure
and a profit to me and my little grand-daughter.
But old men learn to forego their whims; they are
obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone
sooner or later; and perhaps the sooner the better.
“My love to you, “JolyonForsyte.”

‘Bitter,’ he thought, ‘but I can’t
help it. I’m tired.’ He sealed
and dropped it into the box for the evening post,
and hearing it fall to the bottom, thought: ‘There
goes all I’ve looked forward to!’

That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched,
after his cigar which he left half-smoked for it made
him feel faint, he went very slowly upstairs and stole
into the night-nursery. He sat down on the window-seat.
A night-light was burning, and he could just see Holly’s
face, with one hand underneath the cheek. An
early cockchafer buzzed in the Japanese paper with
which they had filled the grate, and one of the horses
in the stable stamped restlessly. To sleep like
that child! He pressed apart two rungs of the
venetian blind and looked out. The moon was
rising, blood-red. He had never seen so red a
moon. The woods and fields out there were dropping
to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the summer light.
And beauty, like a spirit, walked. ‘I’ve
had a long life,’ he thought, ’the best
of nearly everything. I’m an ungrateful
chap; I’ve seen a lot of beauty in my time.
Poor young Bosinney said I had a sense of beauty.
There’s a man in the moon to-night!’
A moth went by, another, another. ‘Ladies
in grey!’ He closed his eyes. A feeling
that he would never open them again beset him; he
let it grow, let himself sink; then, with a shiver,
dragged the lids up. There was something wrong
with him, no doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to
have the doctor after all. It didn’t much
matter now! Into that coppice the moon-light
would have crept; there would be shadows, and those
shadows would be the only things awake. No birds,
beasts, flowers, insects; Just the shadows —­moving;
‘Ladies in grey!’ Over that log they would
climb; would whisper together. She and Bosinney!
Funny thought! And the frogs and little things
would whisper too! How the clock ticked, in here!
It was all eerie—­out there in the light
of that red moon; in here with the little steady night-light
and, the ticking clock and the nurse’s dressing-gown
hanging from the edge of the screen, tall, like a woman’s
figure. ‘Lady in grey!’ And a very
odd thought beset him: Did she exist? Had
she ever come at all? Or was she but the emanation
of all the beauty he had loved and must leave so soon?
The violet-grey spirit with the dark eyes and the
crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the moonlight,
and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was
she, did she exist? He rose and stood a moment
clutching the window-sill, to give him a sense of
reality again; then began tiptoeing towards the door.

Page 246

He stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly, as
if conscious of his eyes fixed on her, stirred, sighed,
and curled up closer in defence. He tiptoed
on and passed out into the dark passage; reached his
room, undressed at once, and stood before a mirror
in his night-shirt. What a scarecrow—­with
temples fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted
his own image, and a look of pride came on his face.
All was in league to pull him down, even his reflection
in the glass, but he was not down—­yet!
He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping,
trying to reach resignation, only too well aware that
fretting and disappointment were very bad for him.

He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless
that he sent for the doctor. After sounding
him, the fellow pulled a face as long as your arm,
and ordered him to stay in bed and give up smoking.
That was no hardship; there was nothing to get up
for, and when he felt ill, tobacco always lost its
savour. He spent the morning languidly with the
sun-blinds down, turning and re-turning The Times,
not reading much, the dog Balthasar lying beside his
bed. With his lunch they brought him a telegram,
running thus:

’Your letter received coming down this afternoon
will be with you at four-thirty. Irene.’

Coming down! After all! Then she did exist—­and
he was not deserted. Coming down! A glow
ran through his limbs; his cheeks and forehead felt
hot. He drank his soup, and pushed the tray-table
away, lying very quiet until they had removed lunch
and left him alone; but every now and then his eyes
twinkled. Coming down! His heart beat fast,
and then did not seem to beat at all. At three
o’clock he got up and dressed deliberately,
noiselessly. Holly and Mam’zelle would be
in the schoolroom, and the servants asleep after their
dinner, he shouldn’t wonder. He opened
his door cautiously, and went downstairs. In
the hall the dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed
by him, old Jolyon passed into his study and out into
the burning afternoon. He meant to go down and
meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he could
not manage that in this heat. He sat down instead
under the oak tree by the swing, and the dog Balthasar,
who also felt the heat, lay down beside him. He
sat there smiling. What a revel of bright minutes!
What a hum of insects, and cooing of pigeons!
It was the quintessence of a summer day. Lovely!
And he was happy—­happy as a sand-boy, whatever
that might be. She was coming; she had not given
him up! He had everything in life he wanted—­except
a little more breath, and less weight—­just
here! He would see her when she emerged from
the fernery, come swaying just a little, a violet-grey
figure passing over the daisies and dandelions and
‘soldiers’ on the lawn—­the soldiers
with their flowery crowns. He would not move,
but she would come up to him and say: ’Dear
Uncle Jolyon, I am sorry!’ and sit in the swing
and let him look at her and tell her that he had not
been very well but was all right now; and that dog
would lick her hand. That dog knew his master
was fond of her; that dog was a good dog.

Page 247

It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not
get at him, only make the rest of the world bright
so that he could see the Grand Stand at Epsom away
out there, very far, and the cows cropping the clover
in the field and swishing at the flies with their
tails. He smelled the scent of limes, and lavender.
Ah! that was why there was such a racket of bees.
They were excited—­busy, as his heart was
busy and excited. Drowsy, too, drowsy and drugged
on honey and happiness; as his heart was drugged and
drowsy. Summer—­summer—­they
seemed saying; great bees and little bees, and the
flies too!

The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she
would be here. He would have just one tiny nap,
because he had had so little sleep of late; and then
he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and beauty,
coming towards him across the sunlit lawn—­lady
in grey! And settling back in his chair he closed
his eyes. Some thistle-down came on what little
air there was, and pitched on his moustache more white
than itself. He did not know; but his breathing
stirred it, caught there. A ray of sunlight
struck through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee
alighted and strolled on the crown of his Panama hat.
And the delicious surge of slumber reached the brain
beneath that hat, and the head swayed forward and
rested on his breast. Summer—­summer!
So went the hum.

The stable clock struck the quarter past. The
dog Balthasar stretched and looked up at his master.
The thistledown no longer moved. The dog placed
his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not stir.
The dog withdrew his chin quickly, rose, and leaped
on old Jolyon’s lap, looked in his face, whined;
then, leaping down, sat on his haunches, gazing up.
And suddenly he uttered a long, long howl.

But the thistledown was still as death, and the face
of his old master.

Summer—­summer—­summer!
The soundless footsteps on the grass! 1917

IN CHANCERY

Two households both alike in dignity, From ancient
grudge, break into new mutiny.

—­Romeo and JuliettoJessieandJosephConrad

PART 1

CHAPTER I

AT TIMOTHY’S

The possessive instinct never stands still.
Through florescence and feud, frosts and fires, it
followed the laws of progression even in the Forsyte
family which had believed it fixed for ever. Nor
can it be dissociated from environment any more than
the quality of potato from the soil.

The historian of the English eighties and nineties
will, in his good time, depict the somewhat rapid
progression from self-contented and contained provincialism
to still more self-contented if less contained imperialism—­in
other words, the ‘possessive’ instinct
of the nation on the move. And so, as if in
conformity, was it with the Forsyte family. They
were spreading not merely on the surface, but within.

Page 248

When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister,
followed her husband at the ludicrously low age of
seventy-four, and was cremated, it made strangely
little stir among the six old Forsytes left.
For this apathy there were three causes. First:
the almost surreptitious burial of old Jolyon in 1892
down at Robin Hill—­first of the Forsytes
to desert the family grave at Highgate. That
burial, coming a year after Swithin’s entirely
proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk
on Forsyte ’Change, the abode of Timothy Forsyte
on the Bayswater Road, London, which still collected
and radiated family gossip. Opinions ranged
from the lamentation of Aunt Juley to the outspoken
assertion of Francie that it was ’a jolly good
thing to stop all that stuffy Highgate business.’
Uncle Jolyon in his later years—­indeed,
ever since the strange and lamentable affair between
his granddaughter June’s lover, young Bosinney,
and Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte’s wife—­had
noticeably rapped the family’s knuckles; and
that way of his own which he had always taken had
begun to seem to them a little wayward. The
philosophic vein in him, of course, had always been
too liable to crop out of the strata of pure Forsyteism,
so they were in a way prepared for his interment in
a strange spot. But the whole thing was an odd
business, and when the contents of his Will became
current coin on Forsyte ’Change, a shiver had
gone round the clan. Out of his estate (L145,304
gross, with liabilities L35 7s. 4d.) he had actually
left L15,000 to “whomever do you think, my dear?
To Irene!” that runaway wife of his nephew
Soames; Irene, a woman who had almost disgraced the
family, and—­still more amazing was to him
no blood relation. Not out and out, of course;
only a life interest—­only the income from
it! Still, there it was; and old Jolyon’s
claim to be the perfect Forsyte was ended once for
all. That, then, was the first reason why the
burial of Susan Hayman—­at Woking—­made
little stir.

The second reason was altogether more expansive and
imperial. Besides the house on Campden Hill,
Susan had a place (left her by Hayman when he died)
just over the border in Hants, where the Hayman boys
had learned to be such good shots and riders, as it
was believed, which was of course nice for them, and
creditable to everybody; and the fact of owning something
really countrified seemed somehow to excuse the dispersion
of her remains—­though what could have put
cremation into her head they could not think!
The usual invitations, however, had been issued, and
Soames had gone down and young Nicholas, and the Will
had been quite satisfactory so far as it went, for
she had only had a life interest; and everything had
gone quite smoothly to the children in equal shares.

Page 249

The third reason why Susan’s burial made little
stir was the most expansive of all. It was summed
up daringly by Euphemia, the pale, the thin:
“Well, I think people have a right to their own
bodies, even when they’re dead.”
Coming from a daughter of Nicholas, a Liberal of the
old school and most tyrannical, it was a startling
remark—­showing in a flash what a lot of
water had run under bridges since the death of Aunt
Ann in ’86, just when the proprietorship of
Soames over his wife’s body was acquiring the
uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia,
of course, spoke like a child, and had no experience;
for though well over thirty by now, her name was still
Forsyte. But, making all allowances, her remark
did undoubtedly show expansion of the principle of
liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central
point of possession from others to oneself.
When Nicholas heard his daughter’s remark from
Aunt Hester he had rapped out: “Wives and
daughters! There’s no end to their liberty
in these days. I knew that ‘Jackson’
case would lead to things—­lugging in Habeas
Corpus like that!” He had, of course, never
really forgiven the Married Woman’s Property
Act, which would so have interfered with him if he
had not mercifully married before it was passed.
But, in truth, there was no denying the revolt among
the younger Forsytes against being owned by others;
that, as it were, Colonial disposition to own oneself,
which is the paradoxical forerunner of Imperialism,
was making progress all the time. They were
all now married, except George, confirmed to the Turf
and the Iseeum Club; Francie, pursuing her musical
career in a studio off the King’s Road, Chelsea,
and still taking ‘lovers’ to dances; Euphemia,
living at home and complaining of Nicholas; and those
two Dromios, Giles and Jesse Hayman. Of the
third generation there were not very many—­young
Jolyon had three, Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas
six already, young Roger had one, Marian Tweetyman
one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of the
sixteen married—­Soames, Rachel and Cicely
of James’ family; Eustace and Thomas of Roger’s;
Ernest, Archibald and Florence of Nicholas’;
Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman’s—­were
going down the years unreproduced.

Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes
had been born; but of the twenty-one young Forsytes
there were as yet only seventeen descendants; and
it already seemed unlikely that there would be more
than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A
student of statistics must have noticed that the birth
rate had varied in accordance with the rate of interest
for your money. Grandfather ‘Superior Dosset’
Forsyte in the early nineteenth century had been getting
ten per cent. for his, hence ten children. Those
ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and
Juley, whose husband Septimus Small had, of course,
died almost at once, had averaged from four to five
per cent. for theirs, and produced accordingly.
The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting
barely three per cent. in the Consols to which their
father had mostly tied the Settlements they made to
avoid death duties, and the six of them who had been
reproduced had seventeen children, or just the proper
two and five-sixths per stem.

Page 250

There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction.
A distrust of their earning powers, natural where
a sufficiency is guaranteed, together with the knowledge
that their fathers did not die, kept them cautious.
If one had children and not much income, the standard
of taste and comfort must of necessity go down; what
was enough for two was not enough for four, and so
on—­it would be better to wait and see what
Father did. Besides, it was nice to be able to
take holidays unhampered. Sooner in fact than
own children, they preferred to concentrate on the
ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing
tendency fin de siecle, as it was called. In
this way, little risk was run, and one would be able
to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace already
had one, but it had shaken him horribly, and broken
one of his eye teeth; so that it would be better to
wait till they were a little safer. In the meantime,
no more children! Even young Nicholas was drawing
in his horns, and had made no addition to his six
for quite three years.

The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their
dispersion rather, of which all this was symptomatic,
had not advanced so far as to prevent a rally when
Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had been a glorious
summer, and after holidays abroad and at the sea they
were practically all back in London, when Roger with
a touch of his old originality had suddenly breathed
his last at his own house in Princes Gardens.
At Timothy’s it was whispered sadly that poor
Roger had always been eccentric about his digestion—­had
he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all
the other brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been
perfect, and coming away from it Soames Forsyte made
almost mechanically for his Uncle Timothy’s
in the Bayswater Road. The ’Old Things’—­Aunt
Juley and Aunt Hester—­would like to hear
about it. His father—­James—­at
eighty-eight had not felt up to the fatigue of the
funeral; and Timothy himself, of course, had not gone;
so that Nicholas had been the only brother present.
Still, there had been a fair gathering; and it would
cheer Aunts Juley and Hester up to know. The
kindly thought was not unmixed with the inevitable
longing to get something out of everything you do,
which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and
indeed of the saner elements in every nation.
In this practice of taking family matters to Timothy’s
in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but following in
the footsteps of his father, who had been in the habit
of going at least once a week to see his sisters at
Timothy’s, and had only given it up when he lost
his nerve at eighty-six, and could not go out without
Emily. To go with Emily was of no use, for who
could really talk to anyone in the presence of his
own wife? Like James in the old days, Soames
found time to go there nearly every Sunday, and sit
in the little drawing-room into which, with his undoubted
taste, he had introduced a good deal of change and

Page 251

china not quite up to his own fastidious mark, and
at least two rather doubtful Barbizon pictures, at
Christmastides. He himself, who had done extremely
well with the Barbizons, had for some years past moved
towards the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was hoping
to do better. In the riverside house which he
now inhabited near Mapledurham he had a gallery, beautifully
hung and lighted, to which few London dealers were
strangers. It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon
attraction in those week-end parties which his sisters,
Winifred or Rachel, occasionally organised for him.
For though he was but a taciturn showman, his quiet
collected determinism seldom failed to influence his
guests, who knew that his reputation was grounded
not on mere aesthetic fancy, but on his power of gauging
the future of market values. When he went to
Timothy’s he almost always had some little tale
of triumph over a dealer to unfold, and dearly he
loved that coo of pride with which his aunts would
greet it. This afternoon, however, he was differently
animated, coming from Roger’s funeral in his
neat dark clothes—­not quite black, for after
all an uncle was but an uncle, and his soul abhorred
excessive display of feeling. Leaning back in
a marqueterie chair and gazing down his uplifted nose
at the sky-blue walls plastered with gold frames,
he was noticeably silent. Whether because he
had been to a funeral or not, the peculiar Forsyte
build of his face was seen to the best advantage this
afternoon—­a face concave and long, with
a jaw which divested of flesh would have seemed extravagant:
altogether a chinny face though not at all ill-looking.
He was feeling more strongly than ever that Timothy’s
was hopelessly ‘rum-ti-too’ and the souls
of his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject
on which alone he wanted to talk—­his own
undivorced position—­was unspeakable.
And yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of
all else. It was only since the Spring that this
had been so and a new feeling grown up which was egging
him on towards what he knew might well be folly in
a Forsyte of forty-five. More and more of late
he had been conscious that he was ‘getting on.’
The fortune already considerable when he conceived
the house at Robin Hill which had finally wrecked
his marriage with Irene, had mounted with surprising
vigour in the twelve lonely years during which he
had devoted himself to little else. He was worth
to-day well over a hundred thousand pounds, and had
no one to leave it to—­no real object for
going on with what was his religion. Even if
he were to relax his efforts, money made money, and
he felt that he would have a hundred and fifty thousand
before he knew where he was. There had always
been a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side to
Soames; baulked and frustrated, it had hidden itself
away, but now had crept out again in this his ‘prime
of life.’ Concreted and focussed of late
by the attraction of a girl’s undoubted beauty,
it had become a veritable prepossession.

Page 252

And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head,
or accept any unlegalised position. Moreover,
Soames himself disliked the thought of that.
He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during those
long years of forced celibacy, secretively, and always
with disgust, for he was fastidious, and his sense
of law and order innate. He wanted no hole and
corner liaison. A marriage at the Embassy in
Paris, a few months’ travel, and he could bring
Annette back quite separated from a past which in
truth was not too distinguished, for she only kept
the accounts in her mother’s Soho Restaurant;
he could bring her back as something very new and
chic with her French taste and self-possession, to
reign at ’The Shelter’ near Mapledurham.
On Forsyte ’Change and among his riverside
friends it would be current that he had met a charming
French girl on his travels and married her.
There would be the flavour of romance, and a certain
cachet about a French wife. No! He was not
at all afraid of that. It was only this cursed
undivorced condition of his, and—­and the
question whether Annette would take him, which he dared
not put to the touch until he had a clear and even
dazzling future to offer her.

In his aunts’ drawing-room he heard with but
muffled ears those usual questions: How was his
dear father? Not going out, of course, now that
the weather was turning chilly? Would Soames
be sure to tell him that Hester had found boiled holly
leaves most comforting for that pain in her side;
a poultice every three hours, with red flannel afterwards.
And could he relish just a little pot of their very
best prune preserve—­it was so delicious
this year, and had such a wonderful effect. Oh!
and about the Darties—­had Soames heard
that dear Winifred was having a most distressing time
with Montague? Timothy thought she really ought
to have protection It was said—­but Soames
mustn’t take this for certain—­that
he had given some of Winifred’s jewellery to
a dreadful dancer. It was such a bad example
for dear Val just as he was going to college.
Soames had not heard? Oh, but he must go and
see his sister and look into it at once! And
did he think these Boers were really going to resist?
Timothy was in quite a stew about it. The price
of Consols was so high, and he had such a lot of money
in them. Did Soames think they must go down if
there was a war? Soames nodded. But it would
be over very quickly. It would be so bad for
Timothy if it wasn’t. And of course Soames’
dear father would feel it very much at his age.
Luckily poor dear Roger had been spared this dreadful
anxiety. And Aunt Juley with a little handkerchief
wiped away the large tear trying to climb the permanent
pout on her now quite withered left cheek; she was
remembering dear Roger, and all his originality, and
how he used to stick pins into her when they were
little together. Aunt Hester, with her instinct
for avoiding the unpleasant, here chimed in:
Did Soames think they would make Mr. Chamberlain Prime
Minister at once? He would settle it all so quickly.
She would like to see that old Kruger sent to St. Helena.
She could remember so well the news of Napoleon’s
death, and what a, relief it had been to his grandfather.
Of course she and Juley—­“We were
in pantalettes then, my dear”—­had
not felt it much at the time.

Page 253

Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly,
and ate three of those macaroons for which Timothy’s
was famous. His faint, pale, supercilious smile
had deepened just a little. Really, his family
remained hopelessly provincial, however much of London
they might possess between them. In these go-ahead
days their provincialism stared out even more than
it used to. Why, old Nicholas was still a Free
Trader, and a member of that antediluvian home of
Liberalism, the Remove Club—­though, to
be sure, the members were pretty well all Conservatives
now, or he himself could not have joined; and Timothy,
they said, still wore a nightcap. Aunt Juley
spoke again. Dear Soames was looking so well,
hardly a day older than he did when dear Ann died,
and they were all there together, dear Jolyon, and
dear Swithin, and dear Roger. She paused and
caught the tear which had climbed the pout on her right
cheek. Did he—­did he ever hear anything
of Irene nowadays? Aunt Hester visibly interposed
her shoulder. Really, Juley was always saying
something! The smile left Soames’ face,
and he put his cup down. Here was his subject
broached for him, and for all his desire to expand,
he could not take advantage.

Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:

“They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen
thousand out and out; then of course he saw it would
not be right, and made it for her life only.”

Had Soames heard that?

Soames nodded.

“Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now.
He is her trustee; you knew that, of course?”

Soames shook his head. He did know, but wished
to show no interest. Young Jolyon and he had
not met since the day of Bosinney’s death.

“He must be quite middle-aged by now,”
went on Aunt Juley dreamily. “Let me see,
he was born when your dear uncle lived in Mount Street;
long before they went to Stanhope Gate in December.
Just before that dreadful Commune. Over fifty!
Fancy that! Such a pretty baby, and we were
all so proud of him; the very first of you all.”
Aunt Juley sighed, and a lock of not quite her own
hair came loose and straggled, so that Aunt Hester
gave a little shiver. Soames rose, he was experiencing
a curious piece of self-discovery. That old wound
to his pride and self-esteem was not yet closed.
He had come thinking he could talk of it, even wanting
to talk of his fettered condition, and—­behold!
he was shrinking away from this reminder by Aunt Juley,
renowned for her Malapropisms.

Oh, Soames was not going already!

Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:

“Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle
Timothy!” And, leaving a cold kiss on each
forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and cling to
his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left
them looking brightly after him—­dear Soames,
it had been so good of him to come to-day, when they
were not feeling very....!

Page 254

With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended
the stairs, where was always that rather pleasant
smell of camphor and port wine, and house where draughts
are not permitted. The poor old things—­he
had not meant to be unkind! And in the street
he instantly forgot them, repossessed by the image
of Annette and the thought of the cursed coil around
him. Why had he not pushed the thing through
and obtained divorce when that wretched Bosinney was
run over, and there was evidence galore for the asking!
And he turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie’s
residence in Green Street, Mayfair.

CHAPTER II

EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD

That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes
of fortunes as Montague Dartie should still be living
in a house he had inhabited twenty years at least
would have been more noticeable if the rent, rates,
taxes, and repairs of that house had not been defrayed
by his father-in-law. By that simple if wholesale
device James Forsyte had secured a certain stability
in the lives of his daughter and his grandchildren.
After all, there is something invaluable about a
safe roof over the head of a sportsman so dashing
as Dartie. Until the events of the last few days
he had been almost-supernaturally steady all this
year. The fact was he had acquired a half share
in a filly of George Forsyte’s, who had gone
irreparably on the turf, to the horror of Roger, now
stilled by the grave. Sleeve-links, by Martyr,
out of Shirt-on-fire, by Suspender, was a bay filly,
three years old, who for a variety of reasons had never
shown her true form. With half ownership of this
hopeful animal, all the idealism latent somewhere
in Dartie, as in every other man, had put up its head,
and kept him quietly ardent for months past.
When a man has some thing good to live for it is astonishing
how sober he becomes; and what Dartie had was really
good—­a three to one chance for an autumn
handicap, publicly assessed at twenty-five to one.
The old-fashioned heaven was a poor thing beside
it, and his shirt was on the daughter of Shirt-on-fire.
But how much more than his shirt depended on this
granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving age
of forty-five, trying to Forsytes—­and,
though perhaps less distinguishable from any other
age, trying even to Darties—­Montague had
fixed his current fancy on a dancer. It was no
mean passion, but without money, and a good deal of
it, likely to remain a love as airy as her skirts;
and Dartie never had any money, subsisting miserably
on what he could beg or borrow from Winifred—­a
woman of character, who kept him because he was the
father of her children, and from a lingering admiration
for those now-dying Wardour Street good looks which
in their youth had fascinated her. She, together
with anyone else who would lend him anything, and his
losses at cards and on the turf (extraordinary how
some men make a good thing out of losses!) were his

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whole means of subsistence; for James was now too old
and nervous to approach, and Soames too formidably
adamant. It is not too much to say that Dartie
had been living on hope for months. He had never
been fond of money for itself, had always despised
the Forsytes with their investing habits, though careful
to make such use of them as he could. What he
liked about money was what it bought—­personal
sensation.

“No real sportsman cares for money,” he
would say, borrowing a ‘pony’ if it was
no use trying for a ‘monkey.’ There
was something delicious about Montague Dartie.
He was, as George Forsyte said, a ‘daisy.’

The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright,
the last day of September, and Dartie who had travelled
to Newmarket the night before, arrayed himself in
spotless checks and walked to an eminence to see his
half of the filly take her final canter: If she
won he would be a cool three thou. in pocket—­a
poor enough recompense for the sobriety and patience
of these weeks of hope, while they had been nursing
her for this race. But he had not been able
to afford more. Should he ‘lay it off’
at the eight to one to which she had advanced?
This was his single thought while the larks sang
above him, and the grassy downs smelled sweet, and
the pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing
like satin.

After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid,
and to ‘lay it off’ would reduce his winnings
to some fifteen hundred—­hardly enough to
purchase a dancer out and out. Even more potent
was the itch in the blood of all the Darties for a
real flutter. And turning to George he said:
“She’s a clipper. She’ll win
hands down; I shall go the whole hog.”
George, who had laid off every penny, and a few besides,
and stood to win, however it came out, grinned down
on him from his bulky height, with the words:
“So ho, my wild one!” for after a chequered
apprenticeship weathered with the money of a deeply
complaining Roger, his Forsyte blood was beginning
to stand him in good stead in the profession of owner.

There are moments of disillusionment in the lives
of men from which the sensitive recorder shrinks.
Suffice it to say that the good thing fell down.
Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie’s
shirt was lost.

Between the passing of these things and the day when
Soames turned his face towards Green Street, what
had not happened!

When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie
has exercised self-control for months from religious
motives, and remains unrewarded, he does not curse
God and die, he curses God and lives, to the distress
of his family.

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Winifred—­a plucky woman, if a little too
fashionable—­who had borne the brunt of
him for exactly twenty-one years, had never really
believed that he would do what he now did. Like
so many wives, she thought she knew the worst, but
she had not yet known him in his forty-fifth year,
when he, like other men, felt that it was now or never.
Paying on the 2nd of October a visit of inspection
to her jewel case, she was horrified to observe that
her woman’s crown and glory was gone—­the
pearls which Montague had given her in ’86,
when Benedict was born, and which James had been compelled
to pay for in the spring of ’87, to save scandal.
She consulted her husband at once. He ‘pooh-poohed’
the matter. They would turn up! Nor till
she said sharply: “Very well, then, Monty,
I shall go down to Scotland Yard myself,” did
he consent to take the matter in hand. Alas!
that the steady and resolved continuity of design necessary
to the accomplishment of sweeping operations should
be liable to interruption by drink. That night
Dartie returned home without a care in the world or
a particle of reticence. Under normal conditions
Winifred would merely have locked her door and let
him sleep it off, but torturing suspense about her
pearls had caused her to wait up for him. Taking
a small revolver from his pocket and holding on to
the dining table, he told her at once that he did
not care a cursh whether she lived s’long as
she was quiet; but he himself wash tired o’
life. Winifred, holding onto the other side of
the dining table, answered:

“Don’t be a clown, Monty. Have you
been to Scotland Yard?”

Placing the revolver against his chest, Dartie had
pulled the trigger several times. It was not
loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation, he
had muttered: “For shake o’ the children,”
and sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked
up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The
liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused
him; Winifred had never ‘unshtood’m.’
If he hadn’t the right to take the pearls he
had given her himself, who had? That Spanish
filly had got’m. If Winifred had any ’jection
he w’d cut—­her—­throat.
What was the matter with that? (Probably the
first use of that celebrated phrase—­so obscure
are the origins of even the most classical language!)

Winifred, who had learned self-containment in a hard
school, looked up at him, and said: “Spanish
filly! Do you mean that girl we saw dancing in
the Pandemonium Ballet? Well, you are a thief
and a blackguard.” It had been the last
straw on a sorely loaded consciousness; reaching up
from his chair Dartie seized his wife’s arm,
and recalling the achievements of his boyhood, twisted
it. Winifred endured the agony with tears in her
eyes, but no murmur. Watching for a moment of
weakness, she wrenched it free; then placing the dining
table between them, said between her teeth: “You
are the limit, Monty.” (Undoubtedly the inception
of that phrase —­so is English formed under
the stress of circumstances.) Leaving Dartie with
foam on his dark moustache she went upstairs, and,
after locking her door and bathing her arm in hot
water, lay awake all night, thinking of her pearls
adorning the neck of another, and of the consideration
her husband had presumably received therefor.

Page 257

The man of the world awoke with a sense of being
lost to that world, and a dim recollection of having
been called a ‘limit.’ He sat for
half an hour in the dawn and the armchair where he
had slept—­perhaps the unhappiest half-hour
he had ever spent, for even to a Dartie there is
something tragic about an end. And he knew that
he had reached it. Never again would he sleep
in his dining-room and wake with the light filtering
through those curtains bought by Winifred at Nickens
and Jarveys with the money of James. Never again
eat a devilled kidney at that rose-wood table, after
a roll in the sheets and a hot bath. He took
his note case from his dress coat pocket. Four
hundred pounds, in fives and tens—­the remainder
of the proceeds of his half of Sleeve-links, sold
last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who, having
won over the race, had not conceived the sudden dislike
to the animal which he himself now felt. The
ballet was going to Buenos Aires the day after to-morrow,
and he was going too. Full value for the pearls
had not yet been received; he was only at the soup.

He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath,
or shave (besides, the water would be cold), he changed
his clothes and packed stealthily all he could.
It was hard to leave so many shining boots, but one
must sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise
in either hand, he stepped out onto the landing.
The house was very quiet—­that house where
he had begotten his four children. It was a
curious moment, this, outside the room of his wife,
once admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called
him ‘the limit.’ He steeled himself
with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but the next door
was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters
slept in. Maud was at school, but Imogen would
be lying there; and moisture came into Dartie’s
early morning eyes. She was the most like him
of the four, with her dark hair, and her luscious
brown glance. Just coming out, a pretty thing!
He set down the two valises. This almost formal
abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning
light fell on a face which worked with real emotion.
Nothing so false as penitence moved him; but genuine
paternal feeling, and that melancholy of ‘never
again.’ He moistened his lips; and complete
irresolution for a moment paralysed his legs in their
check trousers. It was hard—­hard to
be thus compelled to leave his home! “D—–­nit!”
he muttered, “I never thought it would come
to this.” Noises above warned him that
the maids were beginning to get up. And grasping
the two valises, he tiptoed on downstairs. His
cheeks were wet, and the knowledge of that was comforting,
as though it guaranteed the genuineness of his sacrifice.
He lingered a little in the rooms below, to pack
all the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat, a
silver cigarette box, a Ruff’s Guide. Then,
mixing himself a stiff whisky and soda, and lighting
a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a photograph

Page 258

of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged
to Winifred. ‘Never mind,’ he thought;
‘she can get another taken, and I can’t!’
He slipped it into the valise. Then, putting
on his hat and overcoat, he took two others, h